Tug Of War

Can the alturas G4 flex enough muscle to overpower the unshakeable Fortuner?

- Abhay Verma

Let’s get one thing straight, right at the beginning. The Toyota Fortuner has been the king of the full-sized premium SUV segment for a decade. It overpowered the previous generation Ford Endeavour to the crown when it came out in 2009 and it’s only now in its current avatar that the Ford is giving the Fortuner the heebie-jeebies. The Endeavour has proved to be the better SUV overall, but the Fortuner is still the best-seller. And let’s face it, no other manufacturer has posed a serious challenge to the Fortuner.

But now the Japanese SUV must fend off a fresh challenge from the Mahindra Alturas G4. The Alturas impresses on a lot of fronts that matter to buyers, like imposing dimensions, road presence and a long equipment list. But is the Alturas – originally the SsangYong Rexton G4 – reason enough for the Fortuner to be worried? I know, a lot of purists will scorn the very question, I’ve wanted to answer it for some time now. I would have really liked to include the Ford Endeavour in this comparison test too but Ford was unable to provide us with a test SUV. So the Alturas G4 versus the Fortuner it is!

Design and engineering