Mahindra XUV500 heading for Europe

Mahindra & Mahindra – India’s biggest SUV maker – is heading for Europe with the Mahindra XUV500 SUV.

Mahindra & Mahindra are India’s biggest maker of SUVs, but are perhaps best known in Europe for the Ssangyong brand, but they’re on a quest to be major car player in the rest of the world, not just India.

That quest is behind their acquisition of failing Korean car maker Ssangyong and the attempt to grab what was left of Saab from the liquidators.

But it looks like Mahindra aren’t going to rely on bought in brands to make their world push and are planning to launch the Mahindra XUV500 in Europe next month.

The XUV500 is a monocoque SUV with glitzy styling, choice of 4WD and 2WD models and plenty of toys and goodies including leather, SatNav, Bluetooth, LED lights.

It comes with a 2.2 litre diesel four-pot with 140bhp and 243lb/ft of torque and, although only a manual version is currently available, there will be an auto option too as well as a turbo version of the diesel expected to deliver a more useful 170bhp.

Mahindra already exports the XUV500 to Australia where is costs just $29,900 for the 2WD and $32,900 for the 4WD, undercutting the local competition by at least 10 per cent.

Although we know the XUV500 is coming to Europe next month, Mahindra hasn’t yet revealed if it will be offered in the UK.

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