THAR TO THE THAR
We spend a week with the new Thar to find out if you can live with it, if it can chew miles on the highway, if it can bash dunes, and if we are still smitten once the initial novelty has worn off
We drive the Mahindra Thar to the Thar desert to find out if it can bash dunes, munch miles and if it’s easy to live with
II’M NOT WHAT YOU’D CALL A THAR-PERSON. I like, nay, demand refinement from my cars. I want to soak in the tunes and make conversation while cruising at tripledigit speeds. I want to do that triple-digit cruise without having my knuckles turn white. I don’t want my passengers screaming at me to slow down over every little bump. And I hate getting muddy.
Oh, I enjoy driving off-road but I absolutely hate having to get out and push when you invariably get stuck. Head to toe in muck ain’t my scene. Not the average Thar person, then, and that’s exactly the person Mahindra wants to draw in with the new Thar. The enthusiast who has gone soft, who has been spoilt by the comfort and convenience of modern cars. And it starts with Apple CarPlay.
Sounds silly, but that’s the first thing I do when I jump into any car. Plug in my iPhone, hit a new playlist and crank it up. The new Thar is sorted on that front. You don’t need anything else in terms of connectivity, just your phone plugged in, a slot to leave it in so it doesn’t fly into your face, another cubbyhole for the sanitiser bottle, and get on with the driving.
Actually I am getting ahead of myself. The whole appeal of the Thar starts from the moment you clap eyes on it. The styling melts your heart. It looks so cool, so desirable, even Porsche owners are working their phones to jump the (very, very) long queue to get their hands on one. And its appeal is universal. City slickers give it the thumbs up. On the highway we were stopped by scary looking guys in white Scorpios, who only wanted to compliment us on what we were driving. In rural India, social distancing went for a toss as villagers mobbed us when we pulled into the pumps. It transcends all class barriers and I don’t think it would be a stretch to call it the people’s car. Think about it — is there another car that has such a universal appeal spanning regions, demographics, income, cities and villages; even gender? The creative consultant of this magazine booked one the day we dropped our first Thar video, a manual ’cause she prefers shifting gears herself.
The initial excitement is understandable, an emotional response to something that looks so bloody cool. But, as the old Thar proved, it can wear off rather quickly. Can you live with the new Thar? Only one way to find out and so, iPhone plugged in, Maps set for Jaisalmer, we hit the road, taking the Thar to the Thar. Turns out, we are the first to do so.
THE THAR TRANSCENDS ALL BARRIERS AND IT WOULD NOT BE A STRETCH TO CALL IT THE PEOPLE’S CAR
THE THAR REMAINS STABLE AND PLANTED, LETTING YOU HOLD A HIGH TRIPLE-DIGIT CRUISE WITHOUT EFFORT
THE THAR IS FANTASTIC TO DRIVE IN THE CITY! Getting to Ahmedabad from our home base in Pune requires hiking across Mumbai, through Thane and the (in)famous Fountain junction at Ghodbunder, and with traffic back to normal, this stretch can be hell. Of course we leave before the crack of dawn to beat the build-up but there’s no escaping traffic in its entirety and that’s where the Thar’s suitability to the city commute comes to the fore. Visibility is great. You sit high up so can look over dinky hatches. People stop to stare at it, giving you gaps to scoot into. And it is easy to drive. I miss the dead pedal but otherwise it is as effortless to drive as, say, a regular compact SUV (the Thar is also under 4 metres in length, hence the parallel). And then when you hit the tail-back leading the Fountain junction you keep to the extreme left, hit the dirt, and off-road your way to the front of the queue.
Can the Thar be your daily-driver? Master the technique of jumping into the Thar (using the running boards for leverage), enjoy the spectacle of your friends struggling to get in and — especially out of — the back, accept the fact that there isn’t much in the way of a boot, that you have to walk around and unlock the fuel filler lid yourself, and you are sorted.
I am driving the petrol automatic, the perfect combo for city-folk, and the refinement is on another planet compared to what we know of the old Thar. It is also quick enough. On the Pune-Mumbai expressway, and once we hit the NH48 to Ahmedabad, there’s enough and more power to keep ahead
of fast moving traffic. You can comfortably go past the speed limit and the Thar remains stable and planted, letting you hold a high triple-digit cruise without effort, without having to fight the steering, without having to keep your eyes peeled for bumps that can throw it into another lane. The Thar feels safe at speed. The 6-speed torque-converter delivers quick enough downshifts to get past lumbering trucks and the throttle response of the 2-litre turbo-petrol engine is crisp. There isn’t much in the way of turbo lag either, or at least the gearbox’s responses ensure you never complain about any lag.
Of course this is a short-wheelbase body-on-frame so the ride isn’t plush as, say, an XUV300 and you do not get the same steering response or precision. The ride is unsettled — not uncomfortable — but it jiggles and shimmies, bounces out over undulations, and makes you intimately aware of the road surface. On the upside though, when you hit the many broken patches you don’t have to slow down, the Thar just hammers through it all.
Don’t expect to make conversation, especially in this convertible soft top. Wind noise is fairly audible above 80kmph and when you hit triple-digits the roar is quite something, drowning out the stereo, the speed warning, everything. An intercom with a pair of noise-cancelling headphones like what rally drivers use to make pace notes during recce would be a good investment if you plan to drive to the Himalayas with your convertible Thar. Will make you look even cooler!
WE OVERNIGHT AT THE LEMON TREE PREMIER IN Ahmedabad, our preferred hotel partner on our road trips in the new normal, and next morning hit the road by 5 in the morning. Jaisalmer is 550km away and we want to get there before lunch to catch up with our friends who’ve brought their supercars down from Kolkata to discover Rajasthan’s great roads. Fortified with a packed breakfast and flasks of tea from the Lemon Tree, I swap to the hard top which is, as you would assume, much quieter than the soft top. The refinement, especially the wind noise, could be improved with flush fittings, but you don’t have to strain to be heard, or listen to music. Speaking of which, the speakers are on the roof, close to your ears, and are of an acceptable quality though they don’t have deep enough bass. We also discover the lights, regular halogens and not the new-fangled LEDs, work very well in cutting through the pitch dark.
Now impressive as the petrol engine is, this diesel is my favourite. Taken from the Scorpio with updates to meet BS6 emission norms the motor is both quick and very refined. There is barely any diesel engine clatter, next to no vibrations and the power delivery is creamy. The gearbox, manual on our test Thar though the automatic is also available, has a very agreeable shift quality and is mated to an easy clutch action. This is purely my personal opinion but I find the character of the diesel engine to be better suited to the go-anywhere attitude of the Thar. And then there’s the fuel efficiency, the diesel did 11.5kmpl while the petrol-auto returned 8.2kmpl on this drive.
Waking up early might be a struggle but on the upside we skip all the traffic between Ahmedabad and Palanpur and are in Rajasthan as the sun rises, marvelling at the dramatic improvement in the roads along with the drop off in traffic on NH68 heading to Barmer. These are single carriageways but there’s little to no traffic, the surfacing is excellent, the views get better as we approach the desert, and even the FastTag lane works much better. Rajasthan really does have the best roads in the country and I stick the Thar in sixth, ride the solid wave of torque, keep the throttle pinned, ignore the wind roar, and munch in the miles. A stop for fuel, another to devour our sandwiches (where we spot Nilgai standing tall and proud by the road side) and we are in Jaisalmer by 12. Seven hours to swallow 550km is a testament to the polished road manners of the new Thar, that it is now a quick and comfortable road car; that regular folk like you and me can do a 2000km drive to the desert without complaints. And once in the desert…
SEVEN HOURS TO SWALLOW 550KM IS A TESTAMENT TO THE POLISHED ROAD MANNERS OF THE THAR
THE RISING SUN OVER THE DESERT SANDS IS among god’s most spectacular creations. The drive through the dunes in the pitch dark though, trying to locate a vantage spot to catch the sunrise… oh god, that has to be among the more harrowing undertakings. We haven’t had breakfast, and in any case I hate going down on all fours to dig, so I’m fully focussed on not getting stuck.
How loose is the sand? Is there a steep drop on the other side of the dune? Do I go up straight or along the sides? Stick to the tyre tracks and risk getting bogged down or trace fresh tracks and risk falling off the dune? With absolutely no clue on how to read the sands, I’m blindly following Madan Choudhary who has commandeered the petrol Thar. He comes highly recommended but, truth be told, I don’t know him from Adam. If he makes a mistake it will be two Thars, one on top of another, at the bottom of a dune. If he gets lost so do I. If he breaks something, well, it is I who will have to make that embarrassing call to Mahindra.
Need not have worried though. Madan, I quickly surmise, is the king of the Thar — both the desert and the 4x4. He goes by the Instagram handle Private Desert and he has brought us to what can only be described as a private desert.
Usually all the dune bashing is done around the Sam village 40km from Jaisalmer but we have come even further west, where Madan has secured permissions to shoot in the dunes rather close to the border. Laying fresh tracks, we head deeper into these virgin dunes as first light emerges over the horizon, and the vast expanse of the Thar unfolds in front of us. This would be the appropriate time to reflect on the majesty of the Thar — the desert! — except all my faculties are focused on keeping pace with Madan and worrying about not straying too far west and creating international headlines.
What I needn’t have worried about is getting stuck. The Thar was always impressive in the Thar. This new Thar, thanks to more power and torque, is even more capable. More grunt means it can climb the dunes with less effort, and for inexperienced drivers the reserve of torque means you take fewer risks. The approach and departure angles are better than the old Thar, though Madan does point out that the radiator is low and advises caution when I get a little too exuberant while cresting dunes.
Had we the mind space for it, there’s also the Adventure display on the infotainment that puts into infographics all the drama that is happening on the outside — pitch, roll, steering angle, and when the update rolls out you’ll be able to send all that data to Facebook and Twitter. Handy is the tyre pressure monitor that lets us accurately drop the pressures on the excellent Ceat Czar all-terrain tyres before hitting the dunes. It is all, just, so much more civilised. The sorted ergonomics of the modern cabin, the comfortable seats, the coil spring suspension — all those things that make it thoroughly usable on the road also make it easier to drive off the road. You can have a passenger in the back (in our case our photographer) and they won’t suffer a slipped disc before reaching the vantage point. The gearshift is slick and, better still, in the automatic stick it in manual mode and you have one less thing to think about. The steering is easy, the
THE THAR IS TOUGH AS NAILS. NOTHING BROKE, NOTHING SQUEAKED, RATTLED OR DROVE US MAD ON THE DRIVE BACK HOME
suspension has better compliance so you don’t get thrown around, the driving position is good, there is space inside the cabin to move your elbows while working the steering. It means less effort is needed while dune bashing, which also makes the whole drive that much more enjoyable.
And then we find a great vantage spot on the crest of a dune. I park up behind Madan, stumble out of the Thar, and huff-puff up the dune to a glorious vista of the sands rolling all the way to the horizon. The silence is deafening. No birds or bees, no humans or cattle, just the buzz of the drone and the firing of the camera shutter as Rohit gets the moody shots you see at the start of this story. As the fiery orange disc pokes out of the horizon, and the winter breeze swirls around us, I’m reminded of why we do road trips. The days spent fighting unruly traffic, dealing with the chaos at the toll boots, struggling to stay calm through the traffic jams and diversions… it all becomes worth it when you are perched on the top of a dune, catching a spectacular sun rise. And this is precisely why you’d buy a Thar.
For the same money you’d shell out on a Thar you will get a compact SUV which, truth be told, is faster and more comfortable on the highway; easier to live with on a daily
basis; definitely the more sensible choice. But no compact SUV is going to take you off the beaten track. No compact SUV will have you making plans to head to the Thar or the Himalayas. Even if you aren’t an outdoorsy person the Thar will drag you out of your bubble and get you to discover the outdoors – of which there’s so much to explore in our country. Sure, getting there isn’t easy (just as well otherwise it’ll get ruined) but with the new Thar you can now drive up there without risking your expensive dental work going for a toss. You go partially deaf with the wind roar but then you drop the top in the desert, breathe in the outdoors, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.
And after a proper dune bashing you pull the top back up, zip up the three panels, and drive home. The Thar, it is tough as nails. We really hammered it over two days in the desert and nothing broke, nothing squeaked, rattled or drove us mad on the drive back. And after over 4000km with it, sand in our ears and in every crevice in the Thar, I conveniently forgot to tell Mahindra that they could take back their Thars. I didn’t think it was possible but the more time I spend with the Thar, the more I like it. The new Thar, it has made me a Thar-person! ⌧
EVEN IF YOU AREN’T AN OUTDOORSY PERSON, THE THAR WILL TAKE YOU TO DISCOVER THE OUTDOORS