Friday, October 2, 2009

Speculation: Will Mahindra Forego an Early 2010 Launch in Favor of a Delayed All-New Pickup?


Poll Results
The Mahindra truck arrival date poll has closed, and it looks like nearly half of the voters are figuring on a delay for the official US launch.

News is sparse but anticipation is still high for the TR20 and TR40 pickups in the US. Mahindra vehicles are a polarizing topic across the internet. The overwhelming theme of forum and comment dialog is: Who will buy these trucks? Most people are either completely committed to them, or think they are the worst thing on four wheels.

An All-New Pickup?
MahindraPlanet wonders if Mahindra is having second thoughts about introducing the current generation TR20/TR40 in the US as an “Americanized” version of the global market truck.

As we mentioned back in February, Mahindra does not plan to bring the current generation Scorpio SUV (same chassis as the TR pickups) to the United States. Instead, an all-new Mahindra SUV will arrive sometime in 2010. If the next generation SUV sits on an all-new chassis, and if the pickup were to continue to share a chassis with the SUV… does it not make sense to bring over (or build here) a new pickup and SUV with significant parts interchangeability and manufacturing commonality?

A clean sheet design could easily address safety, NVH, fit and finish, emissions, or other issues associated with bringing the current pickup into the US market.

On the other hand, the new SUV may be designed as a purpose built vehicle for the SUV market (i.e. a lighter duty chassis with a non-leaf sprung rear suspension design). Additionally, we’ve all seen the Pickuptrucks.com spy photos of the current TR40 on US soil.

Of course this is ALL speculation, but at the moment speculation is all we have. Stay tuned, and look for a new poll next week!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not saying Mahindra isn't coming, but until the Chicken Tax is lifted, or they have a plant here in the States to actually build the trucks, you can forget about seeing them.
Simple as that. Case closed.
And Mahindra? I publicly defy you to prove me wrong.

Don B.

Anonymous said...

O, you will be proven wrong, trust me on that. ;)

Anonymous said...

Prove it!
You won't hurt my feelings.





Don B.