Mahindra & Mahindra had finally confirmed a long-standing rumour that the five-door Thar is indeed under development. Announcing eight new products until 2027, the five-door Mahindra Thar is a part of that list and is set to arrive in the market sometime around 2022-23. The new-generation Mahindra Thar went on sale in 2020 and is a massive improvement over its predecessor. The model’s stellar success despite being a lifestyle vehicle has played a major role in greenlighting the five-door Thar that not only will be more practical but promises more volumes. Today it has been spied ahead of this year’s speculated launch. A good look at the interior and other details are easily visible. The other thing is that it could be called the Armada. An ode to the 5-door SUV from the brand, which is the ideal successor and carrying forward of the iconic name.
The Mahindra Thar 5-door will be based on the new Scorpio-N platform. The model will sport a longer wheelbase and an overall larger footprint compared to the sub-4-metre offering. At present, the new Thar’s length measures at 3,985mm with the wheelbase at 2,450mm. The Thar 5-Door will be 4.2 or 4.3 meters in length making it sort a mid-size SUV rival such as Hyundai Creta and others in the category.
The Mahindra Thar 5-door will also overcome some of the practical shortcomings of the 3-door version. This includes access to the second row that’s difficult and not the most comfortable. Expect to see better legroom and thigh support coming there, as well as a wider bench. The second row will also get easier ingress and egress with the extra set of doors. The boot capacity will greatly improve on the five-door Thar, which is almost negligible on the three-door version.
Clearly, Mahindra is aiming to woo the private lifestyle buyers that have taken fancy to the three-door version. We do expect to see the 5-door Thar elevating Mahindra’s sales for the model given the sheer accessibility it will bring for a number of buyers. The 2.0-litre mStallion turbo petrol and the 2.2-litre mHawk diesel engines will be retained on the upcoming offering, along with the 6-speed manual and automatic transmissions. However, the bigger news is that 4×2 variants will be offered from the word go. All this will make pricing impressive. The 5-Door Thar won’t get a 1.5 litre but get a 2.2 diesel motor with manual and automatic and RWD.
The powertrain package has been extremely impressive and there’s ample power on either combination to carry the extra weight that the five-door version will come with.
Despite the increased length, do not expect a reduction in the new Thar’s off-roading capabilities. The approach and departure angle will remain the same but the break over angle could be reduced. The five-door body shell could also be wider to complement the longer wheelbase for better stability.
Expect the Mahindra Thar 5-door to see a price increase of Rs. 2-3 lakh, depending on the variant. This does drive up the price of the new Thar 5-door by quite a margin with the on-road prices likely to breach the Rs. 20 lakh mark for the top-end variant. It needs to be seen if Mahindra will take a page out of the Wrangler’s playbook and bring a hard-top and a soft-top version of the Thar 5-door or not.
