New SUVs and utes for used-car prices
Indian brand Mahindra isn’t interested in competing with other new vehicles. It wants to tempt used-car buyers instead, writes Rob Maetzig.
Indian brand Mahindra is embarking on a renewed push in New Zealand’s new vehicle market by pricing its vehicles so they appeal to used car buyers.
It’s doing it by offering a sevenseater SUV with prices as low as $29,990, and 4WD utes for as low as $25,990.
Those prices are right in the pricing sweet spots currently occupied by Japanese used imports, says the man behind the new marketing push.
And he should know, because he’s completed more than four decades working in the motor vehicle industry.
Industry veteran Russell Burling has been brought out of retirement to work as an adviser for Dealer Direct Wholesale, the owners of the Mahindra distribution rights in New Zealand.
Burling had previously owned the distribution rights himself, before retiring about three years ago.
But now he’s back again, and he’s determined to improve Mahindra’s sales performance from the 204 registrations achieved last year – 98 of them the XUV500 SUV, and the remainder the distinctively-styled Pik-Up ute.
‘‘Mahindra is a brand that gets under your skin, because it offers such value for the money,’’ says Burling.
‘‘How else can you put a family into a seven-seater SUV for under $30,000? There are a lot of Japanese used import SUVs sold in New Zealand for below $30,000. But we’re talking about a brandnew car with a three-year, 100,000km warranty.’’
The challenge now is to make more people aware of Mahindra as a viable motor vehicle brand, says Burling.
So now he’s flat-out touring the country on demonstration tours, and finding dealers to add to the current 15 outlets.
And while Mahindra doesn’t have a big presence in New Zealand, it is in fact a massive operation.
It’s part of a US$20.7 billion (NZ$30.2b) multinational group
‘‘Mahindra is a brand that gets under your skin, because it offers such value for the money. How else can you put a family into a seven-seater SUV for under $30,000?’’ Russell Burling Industry veteran and adviser for Dealer Direct Wholesale
headquartered in Mumbai, which builds more than half a million vehicles a year. It’s been building cars since the 1940s when it began assembling the Willys Jeep under licence for the Indian market.
At this stage only the entry W6 version of the XUV500 is sold in New Zealand, but this month it will be joined by higherspecification W10 models that will retail for $35,500 in front-wheel drive form and $39,990 with allwheel drive.
All the XUV500s are powered by the same mHawk 500 2.2-litre four-cylinder petrol engine that offers 103kW of power and 320Nm of torque from 2000rpm, mated to a six-speed automatic transmission.
While the XUV500 is a conventional-looking SUV, the Pik-Up ute has very distinctive styling, particularly a very high roofline which has been designed so owners in India can have the necessary ceiling height to accommodate their turbans while driving.
Entry model is a 4x4 S6 single cab-chassis for $25,990 and the double-cab version retails for $29,990.
A top-spec S10 model, which features such luxuries as hill-hold, navigation, reversing camera and automatic climate-control air conditioning, retails for $33,990. All these prices are GST inclusive.
Powering all the utes is a diesel version of the petrol engine that is under the bonnet of the SUV.
This diesel, named mHawk CRDe, offers 103kW of power and 320Nm of torque from 1600rpm. The 4WD transfer case is BorgWarner.
Asked why Mahindra vehicles can be offered in New Zealand with such low prices, Burling says it is partly because they are built in India, where labour costs aren’t as high as in other countries, and partly because Mahindra is such a massive conglomerate that it can afford to develop its own motor vehicle technology rather than pay huge sums to buy it.