Mahindra Thar Roxx - Smooth To Drive With Good Dynamics | Faisal Khan

This is the Mahindra Thar Rocks and because of the pricing competition shocks, well, this is the key of the vehicle, the same old key which Mahindra has been using since donkey's years now, Tata Motors has also managed to change its key but no, Mahindra hasn't reached there yet. Obviously, the Mahindra logo and you have got a few buttons, this is to unlock the car, this is to open the boot of the vehicle and this is to lock the car, it is the flip key but you no longer need to use this part because this car has got a lot of features, it's extreme value for money or so it seems but this particular variant which I'm driving right now costs around Rs. 27 lakhs on road Mumbai because this is the top of the line, the diesel automatic with four-wheel drive, so no fake stuff happening here because it has genuine four-wheel drive, not real wheel drive which is also available in this car. Anyway, straight away, let's open the engine bay which means, I need to open it from here first and then I need to open it from the other side and bang, opens the hood but before you guys panic, I have to open it from the inside, nobody can steal your engine, nobody can just go and open it like that, there's no insulation there but surprisingly, the engine is actually very silent, this is the diesel, the airbox seems to be huge and that is where washer fluid goes in, it's quite ahead, so it's a bit inconvenient, let's just shut this, wipe the bang there and let me just close this which takes some effort, so I'll just avoid it right now and because this is a true blue SUV with traditional off-road underpinnings, it needs the right tyres to conquer all types of terrains and that's why the Apollo Aptera 82 tyres are the right tyres for the Thar Rocks as they ensure you can go off-road with utmost comfort. The Apollo Aptera 82 tyres are extremely durable and are puncture resistant, even on the toughest of terrains, these tyres are cut and chip resistant. To sum it up, the Apollo Aptera 82 tyres can take on any challenge, check the link in the description to know more. Coming back to the Thar Rocks, well, the front end design has changed when compared to the three-door version and they have actually changed the lights, these are C-shaped DRLs and this is all LED projector, again, LED in this vehicle and the grille gets six slats, no, it does not get a seven slat grille which is typical of Jeep vehicles and which Mahindra has been copying since donkey years. Now, there's a front camera here, Mahindra calls this six-pack abs, I don't like the design of the grille, I am sorry, says Mahindra here, what is this slot so that you can open the engine bay, well, probably the bumper is also getting some revision when compared to the three-door version but everyone ends up changing it. Two parking sensors at the front, so cost cutting has been done, LED fog lamps as well and there you can see, there is the engine guard, there is the towing hook which the four-wheel-drive version should hopefully not need and quite advanced suspension for what is an off-road vehicle. Coming to the side of the car, the main change is here because now this car has got five doors instead of three but they have made quite a bit of changes. Firstly, the wheelbase is longer, so the length has increased, I think around 400 mm is the increase because of which it is no longer under the sub-4 metre bracket but anyways, the bigger engine models did not get the tax benefit. Length is more than 4.4 metres, 4428 mm, I think to be precise. Wheelbase is 2850 mm which is quite long but somehow the design here is not that appealing, so yeah, it could have been designed better. Obviously, the Wrangler is longer, the Wrangler is the OG, the Wrangler is there is only one Tagline car but coming to the wheels of the car, somehow they got dirty but bigger 19-inch wheels, lower variants actually get 18-inch wheels but still, the tyre width is still 255 mm which means that the Thar rocks in terms of the tyre size, alloy wheel design, I do not like here either. Three-door Thar has better design for the alloy wheels, this one I don't like much and if you notice one thing, what do you notice? I don't know what you're trying to notice but rocks is written here, little bit of a weird name, they could have called it the Thar Armada or the Thar five-door like how Force Motors calls the five-door version of the Gurkha as the five-door obviously. Exposed hinges here on the hood as well as on the door, yeah, that is so retro cool. You get a camera there for the lane keep assist as well as a rain sensor, upright windscreen. Meanwhile, there's a radar somewhere here because it has got ADAS level 2 with 10 features, there are no radars at the rear so that is where cost cutting has been done but honestly, it doesn't need ADAS. There's a camera here, so 360-degree parking camera, this is a metal roof is what I've been told and you get a panoramic glass sunroof too. Now, they have hidden the door handles here, they kind of blend with the body but this design is not that aesthetic because if you notice one thing, this line does not continue, it goes up like this, looks better in black because of this weirdness happening here and Easter eggs are plenty, there is the vehicle, there's a camel, there's some cactus, 4x4 written on four-wheel-drive variants. Obviously, meanwhile, the two-wheel-drive variants don't have anything written there, why embarrass yourself but I hope they'll add rear-wheel-drive like they have done to the three-door version of the Thar. Coming to the rear, again, slight changes have been done. Now, they say it's all LED in terms of lighting but no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this is not all LED because when I was trying to look inside, I could find bulbs here. So, this is actually LED but inside everything is obviously halogen, this is the reverse parking light, there are no rear fog lights, it doesn't need it. Meanwhile, this is a place where people are going to put a light which says Thar, obviously, two rear parking sensors, you get a rear parking camera which is right here, full-size spare wheel obviously and it says automatic right there. Faisal Khan Swingers of Truth hunting for the exhaust which is somewhere there and you can see the underbody, obviously, body-on-frame platform, similar opening mechanism of the boot when compared to the three-door version and space is actually good, 644 litres or something of that sort which is massive, well, that's what she said and you've got Harman Kardon speakers, in fact, you've got a 12V charging socket here, a hook here, it's very practical, it actually shows the fuel lid position in case it does not open, so you have a fail-safe mechanism to open it and then do it manually from here. The Camel, I spoke about, the Thar which is obviously always on hill ascend and speakers are placed here and there's a light placement here of what, now the big change is that this car has actually got a rear viper washer which is not there in the three-door version and obviously, you get a rear defogger as well, people will connoisseur this to add storage or something of that sort, Mahindra will sell official accessories as well for the same, so that's something you could expect, meanwhile, the fuel lid now doesn't have to be opened with a key but why is there a key slot here for the boot, I don't know, maybe for the lower variants, that would be the case, now the most important thing is, how is the space, for starters, you can recline the seat like this, so it's 40-60 split, let me put it back up, this is upright and I can push it behind to slide it, yes, it slides as well which means that the recline angle becomes amazing but you cannot push forward or behind the seat, so there's no sliding mechanism as such, the doors open freaking 90 degrees, yeah, that's crazy, take that, ta-da, Ultras, let's step inside, there's a footstep and I'm quite impressed by this car because there's good amount of space, yeah, look at the amount of space, under-thigh support is not the best, not only for me, I'm tall but even for short people, the under-thigh support is not the best, you get a phone holder here, two phone holders actually, a magazine holder as well, scooped out seat back, good knee room, I'm quite impressed with that, headroom is also quite good, I like it, there's a hook, there's a handle, height adjustable seatbelts at the front, says SRS airbag because it has got six airbags as standard across all the variants, there is no hump in the centre, there's a USB-C charging socket, some space here, two AC vents, no AC vents here, so the cabin is actually spacious and you get a centre armrest with twin cupholders, adjustable headrest, centre passenger gets a head but not adjustable and why is this exposed, it is because the way the rear windscreen opens, obviously, meanwhile you have a light on the top, white light and the dashboard is actually very impressive because a lot of parts actually come from under Mahindra cars, however, dual tone black and beige, not so good because already it is getting dirty, yeah, I don't know what this is but it is already getting dirty but that is always the case, there's a handle to hold on to which I can hold and get out, my goodness, this is like massively wide opening door but the door pockets are like chin-toom-in-toom, speaker placement here, piano black finish right there, illumination on the power window controls, that's good and use of leather here with double stitching, my goodness, Mahindra has gone like crazy with this car, giving us a lot of features but this window area is actually quite small, does the window roll down all the way which we are going to be testing right now, so yes, it does, that's amazing but I don't know why they have this panel, this should have been part of this particular window, so the window would have opened bigger but yes, it feels a bit claustrophobic because of the smallish window, anyways, let's shut this, doesn't have this third sound, kind of has this soft thing, I mean the soft sound because it is very well damped actually, so I am quite impressed with that as well, meanwhile, the antenna is placed right here that is the regular bit which obviously Mahindra does because Jeep obviously does all these Easter eggs, so Mahindra is like, why should we be left behind, so they also do it, now let's step inside because again the interior is very impressive in this car, I quite like it, I don't understand why this is body coloured and why this is black coloured, maybe Mahindra ran out of paint probably they did and first things first, it gets electric seat for the driver, yes, only for the driver, door pockets are so slim at the front as well that Mahindra gave its own bottle so that we don't try putting bigger bottles obviously, this can hold like 10 ml of water and all the power window controls are now in the right place on the driver's side which means probably the door cannot be removed like the three doors had, again double stitching, illumination, this is to unlock and lock the door, power window controls are here, this is obviously for the outside rear view mirror adjustment, Harman Kardon speakers, nine speaker system, this is actually the tweeter and you have this thing to hold on to, to climb the car, again soft touch material on the dashboard which is very nice and it has a dead pedal only for the automatic and it has got these pedals which are aluminium pedals, if you don't like aluminium pedals, all you need to do is just press the brake once and maybe once again, no, just press it like this and there it actually comes out, so yeah, not the best in terms of quality, so I knew it has already come out, so I could show it to you but in terms of quality fit finish, the guy is actually very impressive, trust me on this, Mahindra's fit finish and quality is not as good as global car brand but it's still 100 times better than Tata Motors because very few glitches in this car, although there are minute few but considering the price, you can ignore them, AC vents are circular which have to be removed and have to be replaced with Mercedes AC vents, sort of carbon fibre treatment here, again beautiful double stitching, headlight leveller, this is to open the fuel lid, this was stop chart system, this is for hill descent control, this is for traction control, I think this is for ambient lighting or something of that sort and this is for the parking sensors, this is for smart crawl which is like the cruise control between 5 to 30 kilometres per hour and this is for the Intelli turn or something of that sort, I don't remember the name only, I'm so bad with names but I can tell you one thing that that button is similar to Jeep's trail assist wherein the inside wheel gets locked, the brakes are locked there, so that the turning radius reduces dramatically when you are in 4 low under 15 kilometres per hour and that thing will work for I think 15 minutes or something of that sort, meanwhile engine start button, so yes it has got start stop now, start stop button that is, push button start and the steering wheel, the cluster as well as this infotainment system, all obviously come from the XUV 3XO but I'm not driven that car since long, so I'll tell you that actually comes from the XUV 700, some of these things because when I was driving the XUV 700 recently, I did notice the screen, we have similar features, the seats are actually comfortable, it says star here but what is this colour choice for the interior because this will get dirty like really soon, I can assure you that, let's get inside and first things first, let's open the most important thing in this car which is the panoramic sunroof, firstly it starts from here, it should have started from here, so why is it starting a little bit behind, maybe that way they are able to save some amount of glass area thereby cutting costs as well but it is massive, it's like huge, look at that sunroof, it is in that crazy way, I was not expecting them to offer a panoramic sunroof in the Thar, they have gone all out offering almost every possible feature under the sun, so it opens really wide, it's huge, look at the amount it opens, it's crazy, there is no soft top in the version but this also encourages people not only at the front but also at the rear to stick their head out from here, so be responsible guys, don't do that, thank you Mahindra for giving us that, I think it has got acoustic windshield also for cutting down sound and all that, auto dimming mirror, what are you talking about and the light automatically turns on here which is so nice, now that is crazy, in fact, this also extends, so super duper features but this is already getting dirty, this guy has barely done 300 kilometers, all this is getting dirty, it gets automatic headlights, it gets automatic wipers as well, isn't that awesome, something to hold on to here, in fact, it says proudly made in India with pride right there and if I press this button, the glove box actually opens but the glove box is like chintu mintu, however, it gets the cooling function, that's not working right now but still it gets it, there's a button which does not work obviously, it's not supposed to work and this thing actually slides, this is asymmetrical, only this one slides, the driver's side one, this does not slide, there's some storage space here with the rubber mat in the inside, there are twin cup holders, electric parking brake, auto hold function, just in case the car is not detecting the key, you need to rub the key here because this is Aladin and that is Genie and this is the lever for the four wheel drive system, for four high and four low but it does not have the electric switch like the Gurkha, this is obviously a better thing to do, meanwhile, if you notice, it has a wireless charging pad right here and a USB-C charging port which is fast 65 watt, a USB-A as well, plenty of buttons, by the way, I just realized, the rear taillights don't have the Thar branding in this car, thank god because there's too much Thar branding in this car already, air conditioning is the climate control one which is actually very impressive in the chiller, when you turn it on, you can see the information right here, so what are these buttons about, this is for seat ventilation, when you turn it on, it actually shows it to you, in the screen itself, seat ventilation, this is for the passenger airbag, this is for hazard, this is actually for the modes, yeah, this is the four wheel drive automatic, so it does not get drive modes, it gets terrain modes here which you can see snow, mud and sand, what is this, this is for the rear locking differential, this is for the driver seat ventilation, air conditioning, I'm so impressed with it, AC vents, circular, just turn it like this to turn them off and this is a 10.25 inch screen, by the way, all the variants are getting 10.25 inch screen which is amazing, like super duper awesome, let me shut the door, okay, now let's get into the screen, there's so much to explore here, because it is slick to use, although some of the cars, not the ones here, the cars, but previously have had slight glitches with the screen, but I'm hoping Mahindra has resolved all those issues by now, Android Auto is there, wireless, even Apple CarPlay is wireless, but somehow it's not there in this car, I don't know why, adventure stats have been added here, I mean the new ones, look at this, speedo and tacho, engine performance, there's so much information, compass and altimeter, geforce meter, wow, it's so loaded, you have off-road data too and then you've got lap info, TSD, which is time, speed, distance, you can make a custom one for yourself, which is quite nice and cool as well, so easy to use, you've got navigation, which works with MapMyIndia, there are a few applications in this car, including Zomato, so if you're hungry, you can order food on the go, it's got Adrenox connected car tech with 80 freaking features, so yes, it's very loaded, you can see horoscope as well, just in case your car is not driving well, you know what to do and from here, I'm going to come into, I don't even know where I'm searching for, but I can press this button to get into the audio settings, okay, audio quality is actually very impressive, I like the audio system in this car, you get into settings, you can change a lot of stuff, so I'm going to come into the audio settings here and you have studio quantum logic surround ambient, so you can change the way the audio plays in this car, which is quite nice, screen is slick, there's ambient lighting as well, let's get into reverse, this is the reverse parking camera, it gets a 360-degree parking camera, it gets 360-degree parking sensors as well, very loaded, I never expected this car to have so many features, it's literally blown my mind away, meanwhile this is the instrument cluster which is obviously fully digital and you have so much information, again very similar to other Mahindra cars like the 3XO, the XUV700 as well as the Scorpio N, you can get into a ton of stuff and you can change the display layout as well, I'm just going to change it to the, not the minimal, I don't like it, to the normal one and there you can see, this is how it looks, so you have fully digital, do you really need fully digital stuff in a car which is off-road centric and kind of old school, I don't know, I'm not sure, obviously it gets a tyre pressure monitoring system, you get fuel information, you get vehicle information, so vehicle information actually has a tyre pressure monitor, I believe, the power and torque meter, four wheel drive, power distribution, roll and pitch, compass and altimeter, yeah that is a tyre pressure monitor, tyre temperature and then it also shows you this tyre direction, which is quite cool, you have got audio controls here, you've got buttons for the cruise control here and you can obviously make changes to the screen, what all data you're seeing in the screen using this switch right here but if you notice, the steering wheel is also new, feels nice to hold but you do realise a lot of parts are coming from other Mahindra cars and not been tailor-made for the Thar in particular because of which doesn't feel very in sync, however the price is aggressive because of that, steering wheel is only height adjustable, it does not get adjustable for reach and that's the interior, let me actually turn off the car and when I do that, it gives me the vehicle information, it tells me goodbye as well, like what has been the driving thing, it tells me exactly which door is open to, so yeah, this is a Thar which is quite tech loaded and then it does this cool swipe up thing as well, when I turn on the car but how is it to drive, well obviously the engines have been carried over, like I was telling you, Mahindra is sharing a lot of parts from other Mahindra cars and that's the reason they are able to come to a very competitive cost, so straight away, here's the key of the vehicle, I'm going to lock the car and I'm going to show you another cool feature, by the way, if you notice, the outside rear view mirrors just shut, it says Thar on the mirror as well, yeah, they love to do a lot of branding on the car, so I keep this button pressed and when I do that, obviously the driver's side window rolls down because it has the one touch up and down mechanism, the rest do not have it and the sunroof also opens, yes, that's right, using the key, you can open the sunroof too, isn't that an awesome feature to have, anyways, enough of me yappy, yappy, yappy, let's start driving right away, alright, let's start driving, the most important thing about this car and straight away, everything, the swipe up and all and we can start moving by turning off the air conditioning, getting into drive mode and putting the handbrake down also, the electric parking brake, adaptive cruise control off it says and we're going to do a bit of off-road driving, not really hard course, I'm not going to engage four-wheel drive at all, you don't need it because this obviously is very rugged with the underpinnings, I'm going to speed up a bit to show you that it absolutely glides, yeah, not really because there is some amount of slush ahead and there is so much muck here but the tyre is obviously moving, ride has definitely improved when compared to before but the movement, that can never go because at the end of the day, body on frame platform vehicle will obviously move around and obviously this car also moves around a lot, the car was white, now it's brown and the movement is crazy because that lumpiness is there with body on frame platform cars and obviously it cannot be a monocoque platform level ride but it does quite impress you, so now this is the drier part, no issues here at all, my god, the movement is quite a lot because the suspension although has been improved when compared to the three-door, it is still quite like movement oriented naturally because such kind of cars which have amazing articulation also tend to rock you quite a lot, but hey, I'm not complaining, just saying, this person was running on the dog, anyways, let's get into the camera mode, can we? Does the camera work at this speed? Yes, it does, I think it will shut on its own, let me turn it on again and till what speed does the camera work, I will be quite keen to understand that and I could have joined the road from the main road but I decided to take the beaten path which unfortunately is extremely dirty, what is this, yeah, horrendously dirty, anyways, few things I wanted to tell you about, firstly, the rear window, the part which does not open actually looks like a SIM card, it has ISOFIX child seat mounts at the rear obviously and you can child block the rear doors too, okay, this is kind of on the deeper side but then considering the articulation of this car, I don't think it should be much of a challenge, this car will manage everything with quite a lot of ease, so in terms of the way it rides when compared to the three-door version, it is hugely impressive and I forgot to tell you another feature, I give a left indicator, there is the blind view monitor, I give a right one, there it is, inside of the instrument cluster, it's very nicely done, it's super duper sweet and nice, impressed by that for sure, however, I have to tell you that I don't know why Mahindra is not giving blind view alert, okay, I have to take a u-turn but we'll go there and then we're going to take a u-turn, so blind view alert is not there, blind view monitor is there, alert is not there, it gets 10 ADAS features, usually with level 2, you get 20 ADAS features, at least Hyundai offers you 20 ADAS features but then Hyundai offers you features, I can't even tell you right now, like leading vehicle departure alert, wherein you come to a halt, the car ahead leaves, so the car will tell you that you know what, the ahead car has moved ahead, so you should start moving now, that feature is not offered here, I can't tell you the acronym for that feature because then it will look like I am using bad words right now but only 10 ADAS features here for level 2, which is a bit less, I expected more, there are 20 for Hyundai cars in terms of level 2, so we have got adaptive cruise control, forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking, this particular thing is also there, which is quite nice, so it's kind of loaded in that regard but still not really loaded enough, anyways, we're going to take a quick u-turn, that Intelli-turn assist is the feature I was talking about earlier, wherein it will apply brakes to the inside wheel to ensure that the turning radius reduces, again something which Jeep does, this is the BYD seal, let me see if it is scratch resistant, just kidding and off we go, no drive modes here, I don't know why the top-end variant does not get all the features but anyways, it is the time, okay, hazard lights on, we are going to go left foot on the brake, right foot on the accelerator and the car shut off because of the stop-start system and I leave the brakes, car turns on, you don't feel the sound because it's kind of very smooth as such, however, hazard lights off man, off we go, a little bit of wheel spin, that is 0 to 100 kilometers per hour, this is the top of the line variant, so obviously, this 2.2 litre diesel engine is making 172 horsepower and 370 Newton meters of torque, meanwhile, the lower variant, the lower variants actually get a lower state of tune, so 152 horsepower and 330 Newton meters of torque, I'm talking about the diesel, it's available with a 6-speed manual as well as 6-speed automatic, this is the automatic torque converter unit, it's actually very smooth with shifts, not very fast, there are no paddle shifters here, which is a bit disappointing but the petrol is a firecracker, amazing performance but the petrol is a, what is it? It's a 2 litre M stallion turbocharged tag injection engine which produces 162 horsepower and 330 Newton meters of torque for the lower variant but the higher variant get more power baby because 175 horsepower and 380 Newton meters of torque, so 370 Newton meters of torque here, 380 Newton meters for the petrol, in which world does the petrol engine offer more torque than a diesel engine, in spite of the diesel having higher displacement, well, in Mahindra's world but the petrol is quite the drinker, this one will return double digit numbers, the petrol will return single digit numbers and Mahindra knows this, that's the reason demand for petrol isn't that much and that's the reason the petrol is only available with rear wheel drive, there is no option of four wheel drive with the petrol, so if you want four wheel drive, you have to get the diesel, sorry NCR guys but if you really want to enjoy the torque rush, get the diesel, torque rush is actually not there as such because power delivery is very linear, the engine is super smooth to the point that you wonder whether you're driving a petrol or diesel, that's how smooth it is, it's extremely refined, extremely smooth and it's not very fast unfortunately because the car does weigh quite a lot, now obviously because of the added doors and everything, the weight has increased, this is I think the fourth generation of the ladder frame platform from Mahindra, they call it the M glide which is again a weird name but in the Mahindra universe, they do tend to go on the edge in terms of naming their cars or their features or whatever they want to do because M glide tries to convey that the car glides because the platform is such, it doesn't really glide, obviously there's the vertical movement but the ride is very impressive, honestly it's very impressive, firstly it's quite silent a car which is surprising unless and until you obviously hit 100 kilometres per hour when this boxy shaped car will start giving you a lot of wind noise and that happens post 100 kilometres per hour only, below that obviously you don't hear much, big massive tyres which means you can hear them quite a bit but that's obviously expected right and then over such bad patches, there's that movement which happens, it has got FDD, frequency dependent damping which is something which Jeep offered with the Compass with FSD is what they call it, that was like 4-5 years back, not even 4-5, 7-8 years back, it's been so long, the same Jeep Compass has been on sale, which kind of disappoints me, good thing Mahindra is making replicas of the Wrangler so that Jeep learns a lesson of making fresher cars for us, not giving us old stuff, anyways there is another SUV, not, don't call it SUV bro, that is front wheel drive but then Mahindra has also realised that they can sell a lot of these cars, the Thar rocks because of attractive pricing and they've knocked the thing out of the park, range starts at Rs 15 lakhs for the base variant, the MX1, MX3, I don't know what they call it but whatever, the lower variant, the base variant with the petrol engine, 15 lakhs or somewhere about that, which is exceptional value for money, the car we're driving right now, 27 lakhs, somewhere around that because obviously it's diesel, it's four wheel drive, it's automatic, so all these features obviously increase the price dramatically, they've not really revealed the pricing yet, I don't know why Mahindra reveals prices in parts, they should just tell the prices upfront and there's still some time for sales to start, so yes, you still need to wait to get your car, meanwhile the steering is actually light, yeah, they've made it a family car for people who want to just have the off-road image, not really go off-road, so the lower variants get brake locking differential, higher variants get electronic locking differential and the water weighting capacity is 650 mm, so in terms of the off-road capability, obviously this will be a very capable car but because it's a longer wheelbase when compared to the three-door version, breakover angle and all those things would not be that impressive but trust me, the Thar, whether it's the rocks or whether it's not the rocks, it's the stone, it is a canvas, you need to go change the tyres, you need to go change the colour scheme here and there and then after that when people call you chappdi, you need to get a vended as well, jokes aside, this is actually a great time to be in India to buy an Indian car because in the past few days, you've got the Mini Urus and now you've got the Mini Wrangler as well and trust me on this, this is better than the Wrangler for multiple reasons, obviously the Wrangler is a very sophisticated car, there's no comparison whatsoever, by the way, it has got traffic sign recognition as well, that's going to recognise the signboard on the right side, it's going to change it, change it there, it says 60, so yeah, it says check speed limit which is quite impressive because it is something you don't need in a Thar but Mahindra is like, here is every possible feature under the sun, take it any which way, in terms of high speed stability, I would say it's not great because there's so much wind noise because of this being a box on wheels and then the upright windscreen and all, so it becomes a little bit noisy in that regard and handling is decent again, it's not great because this is not meant to be a there is body roll, there's considerable body roll when you try to corner hard, there's this vertical movement on the straights, around the corners also there's this roll, in fact, if you're not really the enthusiastic type or if you've not slept last night, over eaten, having a bad stomach and feeling a bit tired like I am right now, you do feel a bit giddy as well in this Thar Rocks which is because of the body on frame platform and there you see another Thar which has a lot of modifications too and I expect a lot of mods are going to come very very soon. I love the car, honestly I love the car, I know it's going to sell in like crazy numbers, this is a super duper duper hit and Mahindra is obviously going to keep jacking up the prices, I hope some of the features of this car make it to the three-door version as well because why don't the three-door version guys get to have all the fun, why only the five-door guys have it and there's no instant response, a little bit of lag here with the engine and definitely it's the diesel which you should buy because it's more efficient, it has a 57 litre fuel tank which is decent size, not too big, not too small, not much to complain about there, let's quickly turn, look at this okay, it is so effortless, the steering is actually very effortless and we are just going to take left because it's a free left and off we go, come on baby give me the power, meanwhile this guy's got rear disc which the Thar three-door does not have, the Thar three-door has rear drums and people go about painting them, forward collision warning came for a minute second, you can change the setting whether you want it early, late or medium, that is also possible, so Thar has become very techy and it had to because some collision possible, somewhere Mahindra also wanted to ensure that they also push the prices to an upward level and that can only happen when they really load the car with a ton of features which they've managed to do and that's something which will make this car sell a lot because honestly, what you see is what you sell, the car is good, it looks good but the features were missing, it's taken Mahindra exactly four years, exactly like not even one hour ahead or behind to launch the five-door version of the Thar when compared to the three-door version, yeah the three-door version came on August 15, 2020 and August 15, 2024 Mahindra came up with the five-door version, they could have come up with this car much earlier but then they realised, make hay while the sun shines, make hay when the Thar three-door is selling, why get the five-door because this car has absolutely no competition, I think it's going to eat into the Scorpio N sales, it is also going to end up eating into sales of the XUV700 to a certain extent because it will cost less and offer a lot more, so why will people not buy this car, now obviously there's a lot more metal used in those cars like the Scorpio N and the XUV700 and those cars are also costing higher because they're bigger cars, meanwhile this car actually is genuinely very very very impressive because we get a Wrangler on a budget, trust me everyone abroad is actually jealous of us Indians because we get cars like the Thar, I know it's a copy of the Wrangler but it's a fantastic copy, I know I can't say things like why get the duplicate when you can get the original because it costs a lot of money, the Wrangler costs more than twice as much, almost three times as much and then the Wrangler's biggest problem is that the Wrangler's sales and service isn't up to mark, with Mahindra they will not leave India wherever they go, Jeep can go back because American car brands have shown trend of leaving India, it happened with Chevrolet, GM first, then it happened with Ford, is Jeep next, that's not the point, the point is that, okay let me get out of this throttle, the petrol will be such a firecracker now, I think the focus is more on rear-wheel drive here because Mahindra knows who wants to go off-road, people want to just drive with their family and in that regard they're really really impressed, so other than competition from its own siblings, this car will also compete with the which obviously cannot compete with this car because the Thar is way more sophisticated, it has way many more features and obviously a wider service network as well, Force Motors doesn't seem serious enough in India right now, with this very small lineup of dealership networks and then they don't really even market their car much, so nobody really cares, so the Gurkha is out, which means that this car is going to destroy Bachi Kuchi Jimny as well, the 300 units that were sold, that will also stop selling because now people will end up buying the Thar only, nobody's going to look, everybody turns around, everybody turns around to see this car, that's a video is being taken right now, actually gives me the opportunity to get into the adventure stats of this car, so we're just going to put this and I'm also going to change the cluster mode because obviously I can, sometimes these buttons, they take some time to respond, I get a little frustrated, it's telling me the parking sensor information there, I don't want that, I want to this can be slightly better done for sure and we will come into the display layout and I'm going to come into the information one, which actually looks quite cool because there's actually a horse here, it's right behind, I don't know what is Mustang logo doing behind a Thar and parking sensors get activated again, tells you exactly how many centimeters ahead or behind someone is and off we go, manual control is also there, so when I slot the gear lever to the left, it will not make a shift unless and until I decide to do so, they're holding on to second gear, 75 kilometers per hour, horn is okay, change that along with the grille, whenever you do that, let's make a upshift there into third and then you can see over bad road, now it goes like this, so you're going to turn off the traction control, it will not actually work right now, you cannot turn off the traction control once you are up to speed, that's a bit of a problem as well, I'm just going to come into the regular mode because it will just hold on to a gear, even in first gear it does that, it revs to 5000 RPM, so that's where it holds on, problem is this cluster doesn't let me see it, meanwhile I need to tell you that if you remember the Thar E, the electric version of the Thar which was shown in concept form, this car has taken absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing from it, yeah, everything seems to be fresh and new here, although I think the three-door Thar looks better to me and the three-door Thar also drives better because it has more feel, this car lacks the feel to a certain extent, it feels more polished, it feels more relaxed, it feels more like a city car now, although when the three-door Thar comes, it just feels a little short from the side, this one now has the length and obviously feels a bit short in terms of length also because many people have been like, length is not as much, it would have been slightly more and oh my god, the bounciness at times, we are going to manually change gears and I'm going to downshift, we are going to come into second gear, come on, come on, second, to really slow down and off we go and there you notice the engine will redline at almost 5000 RPM, here I'm going to let the three-door Thar overtake me because I'm stuck in gear right now and we are going to upshift right there and off we go, okay, he's struggling a bit, so somehow that car looks wider, I don't know why the Thar three-door actually looks wider and they could have used the same lights and got more aggressive pricing, will all these changes come with the facelift version of the three-door Thar which should be due anytime soon, which actually brings me to the cost difference between both the cars, so I think around Rs 2 lakhs for the lower variants which can go up to 5-6 lakhs on the higher variants because obviously the top variants get so many things which the three-door Thar can only imagine getting, that guy has no interest in overtaking me, all he wants to do now is just look at the car all around, so it's obviously going to attract a lot of attention and Mahindra tells me that the waiting period is not going to be two years for this car because they have anticipated how popular this car can get and they have really ramped up production but does it mean that the three-door Thar will start getting discounts because already I met a few Thar owners and they're like, you know, we want to upgrade to the five-door Thar, the problem is the resale value has really dropped after the announcement of the five-door Thar, so our three-door Thar is not selling at the same price we expected few months back, so that's something which makes me believe that the three-door Thar may not continue its successful run in the Indian market because after some time people will be like, we just want the five-door. Okay, let's do the audio test, if you notice one thing, it has got physical buttons here which is such a good thing, listen to this. Audio quality is absolutely amazing, I never expected a Thar could be so awesome in so many ways, I am so sold on this car now, I would actually love to buy one, the brakes are actually very strong but then obviously there is nose dive under heavy braking, the ABS could be better calibrated, hazard lights turn on immediately as soon as I try to stop aggressively, some sound coming from the brakes, so yeah, that calibration could be slightly better too. I can't find the sound automatic emergency braking. What was that? What is she saying? So obviously it has got voice commands as well, we're going to turn off traction control right now, takes around five seconds and it disables ESP because of which automatic emergency braking also gets disabled. Left foot on the brake, right foot on the accelerator, revving the motor, yeah, it revs till 2000 rpm and off we go. No wheel spin only, it doesn't wheel spin at all and because the car is so rugged, I can just turn around like this, so turning radius is actually, oh my god, this is just way too much bounciness. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. To sum it up, I would say this is by far the best Indian car right now, in fact, this is the best Mahindra car as well and I would pick this any day, every day over any other car in this price range because obviously the Thar has a character, it's more practical for sure but it's lost the charm or the feel of the three-door Thar but not many people are going to complain about it because the level of practicality it gets, it's going to really put the sales chart on fire. In fact, I would choose this over the Scorpio N as well, I am a big fan of the Scorpio and for me personally, I think the Scorpio N is the best possible SUV. I know Mahindra has gone a bit too far by calling it the SUV because when it comes to being the SUV, without doubt, the car which comes to your mind is none other than the Land Cruiser, the Toyota Land Cruiser, the LC300 is the SUV, so we're just going to circle around here and the reason for that is because the Land Cruiser has a legacy but I believe after 50 years, the Thar will have a legacy as well although the way the prices are going up of almost all the cars, I'm not talking about the Thar in particular, expect this car to cost roughly Rs. 1 crore as well but that time, the Fortuner will be costing Rs. 10 crore, so don't worry about that. If you like this video, make sure to give the thumbs up, that's the like button and also subscribe to the channel. I will see you guys in the next video real soon, the sun is setting and we have got a fantastic car today, I'm really impressed by the Thar Rocks, only thing, the name should have been cooler. If you like this video, that's all for now, don't forget to check out Apollo Tyres, bye.