The Mahindra Thar has had a flying start in India, with the SUV crossing 25,000 bookings some time ago. We had already reported to you that the new-gen Mahindra Thar is seeing waiting periods of up seven months. Dr. Pawan Goenka, MD, Mahindra and Mahindra, had himself previously confirmed that the Thar is booked until May 2021. Now, there are reports that the waiting period on the Mahindra Thar has gone up to nine or even ten months for select variants.
Now that's a ridiculously long waiting period. If you were to order your Thar now, you can only expect it to arrive by September or even October 2021, for certain variants. The popularity of the Thar is however not a surprise but even Mahindra was not prepared for such an overwhelming response. Mahindra delivered 2,569 units of Thar in November 2020. To put that into perspective, the company sold only 53 units of the first-gen Thar in November 2019.
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It is however not all bleak at the moment. Mahindra will be ramping up production of the all new Thar very soon. Currently, the company is manufacturing 2,000 units of the Thar per month. That figure is set to go up to 3,000 units per month from January 2021 and that should help reduce the waiting period by a couple of months, although not significantly. The Thar was recently crash tested by the Global NCAP and it even bagged a pretty respectable 4-star safety rating, thus securing its place in the heart of few more customers.
Mahindra offers two engine options under the hood of the Thar - a 2.0-litre mStallion TGDI petrol engine that makes 150 bhp and 300Nm of torque (320Nm with the automatic gearbox) and a 2.2 litre mHawk diesel unit that makes 130 bhp and 300 Nm of peak torque. Transmission options include either a 6-speed manual or a 6-speed automatic gearbox for both the engines. Four-wheel drive along with a low-range transfer case is standard for all the variants.
Mahindra launched the Thar in October with prices starting from INR 9.80 lakh, ex-showroom. It must however be noted that Mahindra discontinued the base AX variants of the Thar earlier last month to make way for the production of higher-spec variants which are primarily in demand. The base price of the Thar thus naturally shot up from INR 9.80 lakh to INR 11.90 for the AX optional petrol-manual variant. This is currently the most affordable variant of the Thar you can buy, with prices going up to INR 13.75 lakh for the top-spec LX variant. Although the Thar does not have a direct rival currently, it will soon see competition from the BS6 Force Gurkha and India-bound Maruti Suzuki Jimny.
Stay tuned to IndianAutosBlog.com for more Mahindra updates and other four-wheeler news.
