MAHINDRA XUV700

Mahindra’s incredible price announcement for the XUV700 left everyone spellbound, we now tell you how it’s like to drive

- BERTRAND D'SOUZA

When a glass drops, you hear it shatter. When you drop metal, you hear a din. But on the day of Mahindra’s XUV700 price announcement (on August 15th), all you could hear was silence and four letter expletives mouthed out silently before the resonance of hands coming together! Boom! In spectacular fashion, the incredible pricing for the XUV700 left everyone spellbound.

At the outset, Mahindra has priced the XUV700 in a band that makes it irresistible. It begins at Rs 11.99 lakh for the base variant. The mid variant, which has almost everything you’d need, is priced at Rs 14.9 lakh (all prices for the 5-seat variants), the XUV700 is set to be a winner. It sets the cat amongst the pigeons, and the question most asked from here on out would be why SUVs like the Alcazar and the Hector are priced as high as they are. It would even draw comparisons to the Creta, the Seltos, the Kushaq, and even the Taigun! Because any way you look at it, none have the kind of feature set, nor the space and presence of the XUV700!

A NEW PLATFORM

The XUV700 sits on a new platform, which is largely a significant evolution of the XUV500 platform which will underpin not just the 700, but a few more of the 23 vehicles Mahindra intends to get out in the market by 2026. It is a front wheel driven platform, but also makes provision for all-wheel drive drivetrains. In the XUV700 the intent was to improve stability, ride quality and give it the dynamics that would offset its high centre of gravity and inherent roll and pitch.