PATRIOT GAMES

We explore just how far Indian manufacturers have progressed, with the Mahindra XUV700 and Tata Safari

- Rivan RS

‘It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.’ These words are a universal truth, and they can be readily applied to the world of automobiles. Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra began as makers of commercial vehicles and rough-and-tough utility models respectively, a little after India declared its independence, and they’ve come very far since then.

The Tata Safari first. That’s a brand name that has been going strong for over 23 years. The secondgen Safari arrived early last year and, understandably, took some flak for not being in the same vein as its predecessor, which was quite a capable 4x4 machine. Tata’s new flagship SUV also faced some criticism for being an elongated and slightly more comfortable version of the Harrier. All that aside, if you see the Safari for what it is (and not what traditionalists think it should be), it’s a solid, spacious and comfortable SUV.

The fact that it shares little with the first-gen model, besides its name, is a good thing in the current scenario. This is underscored by its sales numbers — Tata sold over 1500 units every month on average in the August-December 2021 period. That’s not bad at all for an SUV for which people shell out between ₹ 15 lakh and ₹ 23.20 lakh, ex-showroom.