It's doing it by offering a seven-seater SUV with prices as low as $29,990, and 4WD utes for as low as $25,990. Those prices, says the man behind the new marketing push, are right in the pricing sweet spots currently occupied by Japanese used imports.
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 advisor for Dealer Direct Wholesale, the owners of the Mahindra distribution rights in NZ. Burling had previously owned the distribution rights himself, before retiring about three years ago."Mahindra is a brand that gets under your skin, because they offer 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 NZ for below $30,000. But we're talking about a brand-new 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 NZ, it is in fact a massive operation.
It's part of a US$20.7 billion multinational group 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 NZ, but this month it will be joined by higher-specification W10 models that will retail for $35,500 in front-wheel drive form and $39,990 with all-wheel 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, and Pik-Up ute has very distinctive styling, particularly a very high roofline – so 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, while 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 Borg-Warner.
Asked why Mahindra vehicles can be offered in NZ 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 countrys, 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.
