In a move that may straddle the market for cargo carriers with three wheels, Tata Motors Ltd, is working on a smaller variant of its offering in the light commercial vehicle segment, Ace, said a supplier who is part of the project.

The four-wheeled offering on the Ace platform, with a payload capacity of 0.5 tonnes is expected to be launched by September 2009 and will be called Penguin

The Penguin will be produced at the company’s Pantnagar facility in Uttarakhand, where it also manufactures the Ace trucks. There are plans to make 40,000 units of the new offering, say vendors.