Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls gather around, gather around as I tell you a tale about
a underrated superhero of the Indian automotive industry, one that sells in the 1000s every
month and one that sold a cumulative 1.3 million units.
I'm of course talking about the Mahindra Bolero.
Now, where does it all start? Well, in the late 90s, India was an
emerging market, everybody wanted a new car that looked new, that looked like it was ready
for the millennium and that's exactly what Mahindra needed too. It needed an SUV that changed the
appeal that Mahindra had with its urban and semi-urban buyers and the Bolero was
just that. Now you had the Armada before it and the Commander before that, and that really
looked like well, a rudimentary Jeep. Of course, the Armada Grand sort of spruced it up a little
bit, but it was still not enough. The Bolero though came and completely changed the game.
It was one of Mahindra's first truly accessible urban SUVs, if you want to call it that, 2000 was
when it was launched, of course, it went through a couple of changes through the years.
And now it's 2021 and the Bolero line finally has, well a bit of a brother with it. This Ladies and
gentlemen, is the new Bolero Neo.
I know what you're thinking, it is a TUV 300 isn't it?
Well, yes, it is, but, the Bolero name, well, that has a whole bunch of 'gravitas'.
See the word play there? That has a whole bunch of gravitas in the Indian automotive scene and that's
what Mahindra is really banking on for this new car.
The updates are pretty much at the front end
and they ape the design language that you normally see on the current gen Bolero too.
a similar vertical front grille that Jeep won't take them to court for, a redesigned
set of headlamps that look sleeker, and the bumper that has some typical Bolero cues.
So those are the big changes that Mahindra has done on the front end to make the TUV 300
updated and look like the Bolero. Of course, there are some smaller details, like this crease
in the bonnet and the fact that the bonnet itself, even though it's still a clamshell, is now
a little bit lower, a little bit smoothened out, but the thing that people are going to
notice is stuff like this, this little, this little cladding on the side, this plastic cladding
that is very reminiscent of what a Bolero gets. Luckily though, there are no exposed
door hinges and honestly, I don't think an exposed door hinge would even be possible
in the TUV 300 although it would have been quite funky to look at.
That said, unlike the TUV 300, the Bolero gets only these black plastic door handles, now I don't know
how that will be, sort of taken by the public and again something that they've done to make it more
rudimentary looking or more rugged looking is take apart the C-Pillar or the D-Pillar in this case,
make it body coloured as compared to what was in the standard car or the TUV which was black.
And if you're wondering why this is so massive, well we'll put my hand as a reference point,
that's because the fuel and the AdBlue filler are both behind this door and honestly it
looks like a vault door, I mean my head could fit in there.
Now one of the things that Mahindra did stick to, it's guns on the Bolero Neo are
the side facing seats. Now there are a lot of, not a
lot of cars in this segment or in India in general, especially in the sub four-meter
SUV category that get these side facing seats apart from the standard Bolero of course.
But well, you do get a step here, so you can climb into the car comfortably, hold the handle,
and not look like a complete off, it's actually very easy to get in and out of. Now we asked
Mahindra why they've actually kept these seats, and I kid you not, one of the reasons given was,
in certain places in India when the Sarpanch or the head of the village or just the guy
who owns the car drives around in the front, on the passenger seat, his bodyguards or his
goons drive in the back with guns and it's easier to get in and out of the car if the seats
are facing sideways. That's a genuine, genuine answer, it's given by somebody from Mahindra. Of course,
it was a funny little anecdote, but that's, that's a true anecdote, it actually happens
it still actually happens.
You can't in real life actually fit two adults in the back especially
two fat adults like, like sort of me, unless you want to, well have your head hit the roof
all the time, or you can't really put the door shut because your hand's going to be in
the way or if your friend and you like touching knees or putting your legs in between each
other's legs. But at the end of the day, if you want to maybe have a temporary quick journey
around the city or somebody's small sit here, well, it's going to be easy to put people
in the back. Would I put kids in the back? I don't think so, the kids of course are better off
in the middle seat where there is ISOFIX too. So it's a safer car, of course you've got the
two airbags, ABS, EBD, no crash test results just yet, but I think it'll score pretty well,
especially with all of that built in.
The rear seat isn't too bad either and you'll be sitting pretty much upright and of course,
the seats could have been a lot better in general,
but they do have some creature comforts like a hand rest. While the changes on the exterior
are a lot more obvious, the changes on the interior aren't, because well,
there aren't any real changes as such.
You do have a different seat upholstery, but that's pretty much where the changes end,
even the centre console is pretty much exactly as it is, it still has the high seating position,
which a lot of people will find great, but everything else is pretty much the same. Now,
for a standard Bolero customer, this, of course, will be a big upgrade, it'll be a big step up.
But there are some missing bits too, for example, the infotainment system doesn't have
Apple CarPlay or Android Auto and I think this tier two or tier three city customer that
this car is aimed for, they want this new tech, this is their aspirational car at the end of the
day for a lot of people and that tech missing, well, I think that's a bit of a negative point.
The other thing that's really missing and something that you do need in a car with a
seating position this high, is a rear-view camera, and that's something Mahindra should
have added in. Again, I know it can be added in aftermarket and a lot of people will do that,
and the, the sort of the screen is ready to take in that aftermarket camera,
but a factory fitted camera that would have just been perfect.
Well, if you think that this is going to drive like a well, sorted out, modern SUV,
then well, you're going to be disappointed
because it won't, however, what it does bring to the table is what the TUV and the Bolero
both have always brought. It's that sense of, nothing's going to ever break me, nothing's
going to destroy me, I will live through a nuclear holocaust, that sort of sensation.
And honestly, that's what this sort of customer really wants, he needs something that's low
on the maintenance, high on reliability, and just can be thrashed around everywhere
and will take all that abuse.
So the engine is still the same, it's still the 100 horsepower 1.5-litre
CRDe unit that's been used in the TUV 300 in the past, but Mahindra has upped the torque
a little bit, so you do feel that little bit better mid-range performance, which means
that you won't have to shift down a gear when you want to overtake somebody on a highway or
if you want to maybe poke your way through a bit of traffic, that's going to be great,
because a lot of people that, who do actually buy this car don't tend to, well be in the
correct gear at the correct time and tend to sort of have that higher gear all the time
just to extend the fuel economy and that will help, this higher torque will help that.
Now, honestly, we've only had the chance to drive this around the Mahindra test track, here at Chakan,
and that's not a great measure of how this drives on the road because at
the end of the day, this thing is going to be put through its paces on bad roads, potholes,
and well everything that an Indian road can throw at it. So we will bring that to you
eventually maybe, but at the end of the day, we've already driven the TUV 300 for
years and years and we know that it does all of that really well. So this thing will
do that well, too. Is this going to be as accepting of abuse as a standard Bolero is, well, probably
not, but, well at the end of the day, this is the same chassis that's underpinning the
Scorpio and the Thar, we all know how much abuse that can take. So I wouldn't discount it just yet.
To be honest, Mahindra might have a bit of a trick up its sleeve because there isn't
really anything that's completely chuckable, throwable and abusable in this price point
which this really is. So, do they have a little bit of a surprise planned out? Will this do
the kind of sales that the Bolero does on a general basis? Well, we'll just have to wait and see.
So how do we sum this up then? Well, I think it's pretty straightforward. There's
definitely an audience as I mentioned earlier that Mahindra will tap into and Mahindra will,
well, dominate because there's definitely a cross section of the car buying public that
loves the Bolero and for somebody of that cross section to go and get a Bolero which
is better equipped, drives better, is more modern, has more tech and honestly is a better
car all round than the standard Bolero is,
well that's going to be a selling point for a lot of people, lot of people
are people actually going to buy into that.
Honestly that mistake that Mahindra made so
many years ago when they launched the TUV 300 as the TUV 300 and not as a new Bolero,
well, that's something that they realized now and that's something that's finally been undone.
Better late than never, this car should have always been the new Bolero. In fact, I can
tell you with certainty that internally that was what the plan really was, and never came
through but well, better late than never, as I said and what intrigues me the most though,
as a closing statement, I wonder if there will be a follow up to the hit Bhojpuri single
'baby baith Bolero mein', if you don't know what that is, you should google it because
that's the kind of love that the Bolero brand really gets.
Maybe I can drive in that song too,
or dance in it.
Should we make one? 'Baby baith Bolero mein Part - 2' by PowerDrift. Would you watch that?
Now just as we thought as we were done with the seriousness of making a car review the
good fellows at Mahindra asked us, if we wanted to test the Neo's new mechanical lock differential,
over an off-road track and being the off-road junkie that I am, obviously I didn't refuse. Now you do
really feel that mechanical lock differential working, but well, honestly, is it really needed
in a car like this, unless you're going to drive in the hills or on some really, really,
really, really, really bad roads, I'd actually skip that option altogether and once that
Simple Simon course was done for the day I decided to do, well some celebratory donuts.
Oh how all the love and joy, a raving drive car can bring you.