The offroad-focused Mahindra Thar family will be expanding with a new 5-door model. The interesting part is the Indian-based brand has chosen South Africa for the reveal.

The news comes from Autocar India, who claim the new Mahindra Thar will be revealed in South Africa on the 15th August 2023.

As a reminder, the Mahindra Thar is a rugged two-door offroader in the same vein as the Suzuki Jimny. The current generation model was revealed back in the middle of 2020 and we had hopes that it would be introduced to our market. Sadly, it has not yet materialised, but three years on, the Mahindra Thar family is due to receive a five-door model.

Not much is known yet, but the original source suggested the new Mahindra Thar 5-door model will be available with a choice of either a 2.2-litre turbodiesel and a 2.0-litre turbo petrol engine. We’d assume these are the same engines available in the Scorpio-N and XUV700 SUVs.

It’s easy to understand why Mahindra has chosen our country for a reveal. Mahindra SA manufacturers the Scorpio bakkie in Kwa-Zulu Natal and its passenger car sales have shown good growth with the XUV range of SUVs. There’s a rumour we might see the all-electric XUV400 hitting SA roads at some point.

The Mahindra Thar 5-door reveal is a similar strategy to that of Suzuki, with now a 2-door and 5-door Jimny being offered and we expect the two vehicles to go head-to-head.

We expect the all-new Mahindra Thar range to go on sale in South Africa in 2024. Stay tuned for updates as we get closer to the middle of August.

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