Mahindra unveils new generation of Thar; launch on Oct 2

New Thar SUV, with more modern comforts, will be launched on October 2

new-Thar-mahindra-2020-

For all the off-roading and adventure aficionados in India, Mahindra’s Thar has had a special place. The SUV traces its root back to the Willys Jeep of 1949, which Mahindra had started assembling in India. In the past few decades, the homegrown company has manufactured many successful SUVs like the Scorpio, Bolero and XUV500. Yet, the Thar, which first debuted in 2010 carved out a niche for itself in the Mahindra stable due to its off-roading capabalities. 

Eager, to evolve from being just a niche and targeting a much wider audience, Mahindra on the independence day unveiled its new generation of the Thar. 

“Though there are only about 60,000 Thars on the road, the vehicle and the brand brand has become an icon. But, the Thar had something missing. While, we had kept the authenticity of Mahindra Classics in the Thar, the vehicle continued with an old platform and was lacking many comforts and modern features. We set out to correct that four years ago and design and develop all new Thar,” said Pawan Goenka, managing director and CEO of M&M. 

The new Thar not just aims to attract the die-hard Thar enthusiasts, but its now been given a complete makeover, with more luxurious interiors, modern technology and even a fully automatic transmission, which the company hopes will also appeal to all those people who want all the bells and whistles of a contemporary SUV.

“From an existing fan’s perspective the new Thar will be ridiculously powerful, insanely capable, wonderfully fun and quintessentially Thar. From a new fan’s perspective, it will be supremely comfortable, surprisingly practical, impressively hi-tech, reassuringly secured and still quintessentially Thar,” said Veejay Nakra, CEO of Mahindra’s automotive business.

The Thar will be powered by a new 2.0 litre petrol engine and and 2.2 litre diesel engine. It will be mated to a six-speed manual or six-speed torque convertor automatic transmission. The Thar gets new modern features like a drizzle-resistant 17.8 cm touch srreen infotainment system, cruise control, adventure statistics display, roof mounted speakers among other things. It will also get more safety features like ABS, EBD and twin airbags, apart from hill-hold and hill descent control among other things. 

Mahindra didn’t announce the pricing of the new Thar SUV, which will be launched on October 2, which happens to be the Mahindra Founders Day. 

The SUV will be offered in two versions—AX, which is aimed more at the off-road enthusiasts and the LX, which will target the lifestyle focused customers. 

The Thar will compete with the new Gurkha SUV from Force Motors, which was showcased at the auto expo and is also expected to launched in the coming months.

📣 The Week is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@TheWeekmagazine) and stay updated with the latest headlines