The Mahindra Super-XUV

We all know the XUV500: a stylish, softly sprung, diesel-engined, seven-seater. And it’s flying off the shelves for being stylish, softly sprung, diesel-engined and seating seven; attributes that should consign any notion of rallying to the rubbish bin. Okay, being good-looking is no drawback, but you get the drift – who rallies a 2.2-ton SUV that’s taller than the average Indian with a centre of gravity near his belly? Even by Indian motorsport standards, where we race and rally anything we can lay our hands on, a yumping, opposite-locking XUV500 is just wrong. The XUV has no pedigree; its platform is Mahindra’s first crack at a monocoque; it is natively front-wheel-drive; and Mahindra themselves have no rallying history save for the time Farad Bhathena won the Great Desert Himalaya Raid successively in 1988 and ’89 in a works Mahindra MM540.

And yet, at the first round of the 2013 INRC, the XUV wiped the floor clean, beating the best of the Cedias by over four-and-a-half minutes. That’s an eon in a championship where top drivers battle for fractions of a second in every stage.

Engine is standard save for a diesel tuning box and perofrmance air filter. Intercooler repositioned from top of the engine to the front, near the radiator, for better cooling hence the big red hose.

We all know the XUV500: a stylish, softly sprung, diesel-engined, seven-seater. And it’s flying off the shelves for being stylish, softly sprung, diesel-engined and seating seven; attributes that should consign any notion of rallying to the rubbish bin. Okay, being good-looking is no drawback, but you get the drift – who rallies a 2.2-ton SUV that’s taller than the average Indian with a centre of gravity near his belly? Even by Indian motorsport standards, where we race and rally anything we can lay our hands on, a yumping, opposite-locking XUV500 is just wrong. The XUV has no pedigree; its platform is Mahindra’s first crack at a monocoque; it is natively front-wheel-drive; and Mahindra themselves have no rallying history save for the time Farad Bhathena won the Great Desert Himalaya Raid successively in 1988 and ’89 in a works Mahindra MM540.

And yet, at the first round of the 2013 INRC, the XUV wiped the floor clean, beating the best of the Cedias by over four-and-a-half minutes. That’s an eon in a championship where top drivers battle for fractions of a second in every stage.

Engine is standard save for a diesel tuning box and perofrmance air filter. Intercooler repositioned from top of the engine to the front, near the radiator, for better cooling hence the big red hose.

We all know the XUV500: a stylish, softly sprung, diesel-engined, seven-seater. And it’s flying off the shelves for being stylish, softly sprung, diesel-engined and seating seven; attributes that should consign any notion of rallying to the rubbish bin. Okay, being good-looking is no drawback, but you get the drift – who rallies a 2.2-ton SUV that’s taller than the average Indian with a centre of gravity near his belly? Even by Indian motorsport standards, where we race and rally anything we can lay our hands on, a yumping, opposite-locking XUV500 is just wrong. The XUV has no pedigree; its platform is Mahindra’s first crack at a monocoque; it is natively front-wheel-drive; and Mahindra themselves have no rallying history save for the time Farad Bhathena won the Great Desert Himalaya Raid successively in 1988 and ’89 in a works Mahindra MM540.

And yet, at the first round of the 2013 INRC, the XUV wiped the floor clean, beating the best of the Cedias by over four-and-a-half minutes. That’s an eon in a championship where top drivers battle for fractions of a second in every stage.

Engine is standard save for a diesel tuning box and perofrmance air filter. Intercooler repositioned from top of the engine to the front, near the radiator, for better cooling hence the big red hose.

We all know the XUV500: a stylish, softly sprung, diesel-engined, seven-seater. And it’s flying off the shelves for being stylish, softly sprung, diesel-engined and seating seven; attributes that should consign any notion of rallying to the rubbish bin. Okay, being good-looking is no drawback, but you get the drift – who rallies a 2.2-ton SUV that’s taller than the average Indian with a centre of gravity near his belly? Even by Indian motorsport standards, where we race and rally anything we can lay our hands on, a yumping, opposite-locking XUV500 is just wrong. The XUV has no pedigree; its platform is Mahindra’s first crack at a monocoque; it is natively front-wheel-drive; and Mahindra themselves have no rallying history save for the time Farad Bhathena won the Great Desert Himalaya Raid successively in 1988 and ’89 in a works Mahindra MM540.

And yet, at the first round of the 2013 INRC, the XUV wiped the floor clean, beating the best of the Cedias by over four-and-a-half minutes. That’s an eon in a championship where top drivers battle for fractions of a second in every stage.

Engine is standard save for a diesel tuning box and perofrmance air filter. Intercooler repositioned from top of the engine to the front, near the radiator, for better cooling hence the big red hose.

We all know the XUV500: a stylish, softly sprung, diesel-engined, seven-seater. And it’s flying off the shelves for being stylish, softly sprung, diesel-engined and seating seven; attributes that should consign any notion of rallying to the rubbish bin. Okay, being good-looking is no drawback, but you get the drift – who rallies a 2.2-ton SUV that’s taller than the average Indian with a centre of gravity near his belly? Even by Indian motorsport standards, where we race and rally anything we can lay our hands on, a yumping, opposite-locking XUV500 is just wrong. The XUV has no pedigree; its platform is Mahindra’s first crack at a monocoque; it is natively front-wheel-drive; and Mahindra themselves have no rallying history save for the time Farad Bhathena won the Great Desert Himalaya Raid successively in 1988 and ’89 in a works Mahindra MM540.

And yet, at the first round of the 2013 INRC, the XUV wiped the floor clean, beating the best of the Cedias by over four-and-a-half minutes. That’s an eon in a championship where top drivers battle for fractions of a second in every stage.

Engine is standard save for a diesel tuning box and perofrmance air filter. Intercooler repositioned from top of the engine to the front, near the radiator, for better cooling hence the big red hose.

We all know the XUV500: a stylish, softly sprung, diesel-engined, seven-seater. And it’s flying off the shelves for being stylish, softly sprung, diesel-engined and seating seven; attributes that should consign any notion of rallying to the rubbish bin. Okay, being good-looking is no drawback, but you get the drift – who rallies a 2.2-ton SUV that’s taller than the average Indian with a centre of gravity near his belly? Even by Indian motorsport standards, where we race and rally anything we can lay our hands on, a yumping, opposite-locking XUV500 is just wrong. The XUV has no pedigree; its platform is Mahindra’s first crack at a monocoque; it is natively front-wheel-drive; and Mahindra themselves have no rallying history save for the time Farad Bhathena won the Great Desert Himalaya Raid successively in 1988 and ’89 in a works Mahindra MM540.

And yet, at the first round of the 2013 INRC, the XUV wiped the floor clean, beating the best of the Cedias by over four-and-a-half minutes. That’s an eon in a championship where top drivers battle for fractions of a second in every stage.

Engine is standard save for a diesel tuning box and perofrmance air filter. Intercooler repositioned from top of the engine to the front, near the radiator, for better cooling hence the big red hose.