At Its Best Off The Thar

Much praise has been heaped on the Suzuki Jimny for being the cheapest 4×4 with low-range on offer in South Africa.

We’ve never been comfortable with this statement, because of the existence of the Mahindra Thar. At R223 000, it’s by far the cheapest way of getting into a ‘real’ 4x4.

Unfortunately, we’ve never been able to get behind the wheel of this scarce off-roader and you almost never see them on the road. We’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that it might be so horrific that Mahindra simply didn’t want anyone driving it.

Luckily, Mahindra recently invited us to do an off-road driving course at its training facility and we asked if we might be able to do it in a Thar. “Sure,” said Mahindra and off we went.

First, let’s get rid of the elephant in the room: the Wrangler-like styling. Some may call it a blatant copy of the oldest and perhaps most iconic of 4×4s, but the fact of the matter is that Mahindra has been building Jeeps for nearly as long as Jeep has. Mahindra was one of the first companies to be granted a licence to build this car. The original agreement dates back to 1947, in fact.