I'm a Real Engineer with a good bit of auto industry experience (though not a Chartered Engineer or PE as we tend to call them in the US, that's more for the civil engineering types), and I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that engineers aren't just 'jumped up mechanics'. Most of the best engineers I've worked with are captivated with experimentation, elegant design, and high performance applications. The best mechanics work with the same drive. The best engineers I know ARE jumped up mechanics. Just because someone learned how to analyze stresses and work with Navier-Stokes doesn't make them some zombie with a calculator.
As an engineer I'm not amazed by the fact that someone spent a year trying to find the cheapest plastic to mold a barely adequate oil pan from. We have a pretty good idea of what is cheap and what works. Tata worked with a different set of specifications than automotive designers in other countries and something different came out. I'm not ready to make a judgment whether the specs are wise or not, we'll see that over the next few years.