Mahindra's luxury SUV comes out of India to New Zealand  

MAHINDRA XUV500 W8
Price range: $36,990 (FWD) to $39,990 (AWD).
Powertrain: 2.2-litre turbo-diesel producing 103kW/330Nm, 6-speed automatic with front or all-wheel drive.
On sale: Now.
You could look at Indian brand Mahindra in two ways.
From a Kiwi perspective, it's a relative newcomer, niche purveyor of utes and farm vehicles and a concern that could do with some spelling tutelage (one of its models is called the Pik Up).

in the bigger picture, Mahindra Automotive makes half a million cars per year (so about the same as another Indian carmaker, Jaguar Land Rover) and holds a 40 percent market share at home. Its parent company, Mahindra & Mahindra, is a US$17 billion concern with no debt and 112 different divisions covering 20 different industries in 100 countries.

Mahindra has owned a controlling interest in Korean brand SsangYong since 2011. Other recent motoring-related purchases include Peugeot Scooters and Italian design house Pininfarina. Mahindra is also the world's largest manufacturer of tractors by volume (300,000 annually) and happens to own a few other minor brands, such as Mitsubishi Tractors.
Mahindra has a controlling interest in electric-car maker Reva (the e20 city car is on sale in India and London) and it's one of 10 core partners in the Formula E series.
So Mahindra is a massive concern that's looking to establish itself more firmly in export markets, particularly in the automotive sphere. Of those 500,000 cars manufactured last year, 474,000 were sold in India. There's room to expand.

It's baby steps towards that goal, which is why Mahindra is testing the waters in markets like Australia and New Zealand. Mahindra has some serious commercial muscle behind it: the local distribution company is owned by Nichibo, NZ's largest used-vehicle importer: it brings in approximately 45,000 cars per year and gives Mahindra access to over 20 retail locations, from Northland to Southland.

Nonetheless, Mahindra has been operating under the radar here, selling vehicles like the Genio ute, Pik Up and Thar to commercial and rural customers. Off-roaders are in the DNA: Mahindra started building a version of the American Willys Jeep in 1947, and it continues as a cult vehicle in (mildly) modernised form as the Thar. Unlike Genio and Pik Up, it's not legally road-registrable - but it is sold here as a farm vehicle.
Anyway, those are light-commercial curiosities compared with Mahindra's aspirations towards the mainstream SUV market. It's had the XUV500, a seven-seat family crossover, on the market since 2014, but only in diesel-manual form. The appeal was limited to say the least.

DAVID LINKLATER/FAIRFAX NZ

Pravin Shah, global head of Mahindra Automotive, visited NZ for the XUV launch.

The refreshed model is now available with an automatic transmission, and that's been the catalyst for the company to make a lot more noise about its model range.
In fact, special guest for the select media launch of the XUV500 was Pravin Shah, president and chief executive of Mahindra Automotive and member of the Group Executive Board. That's quite a coup for a company that sold 200 road vehicles last year, in one of the smallest car markets in the world.
But we are part of a bigger picture for Mahindra. "New Zealand is part of a globalisation strategy," says Shah. "We are here to stay."
That strategy started back in 2011 with the aquisition of SsangYong, and has continued on the same path with Pininfarina: "SsangYong has really helped with our global footprint and it fits with our SUV DNA.
"As for Pininfarina, the purchase was not based on surplus cash but global strategy. This was a critical aquisition, because there will be a future when automotive companies may not actually produce the cars you buy. It may be technology or IT companies. Pininfarina and Mahindra Tech [the group's IT division, which also has a presence in NZ] together make a lot of sense."
That's a lot of talk about about a bold new future. In the here and now, the XUV500 is more of an old-school SUV. It's a seven-seat wagon that comes at a bargain price (from $36,990) for a fully loaded package: standard equipment for the W8 model includes leather upholstery, seven-inch colour touch screen with pinch-and-zoom satellite navigation, power driver's seat, reversing camera with dynamic guidelines, foldable second and third-row seats, LED interior lights, and wireless tyre-pressure monitoring on all wheels, including (usefully) the spare.
Mahindra NZ is realistic about this vehicle. It's pitched as a step-up from a used car, or a weekend tow-wagon (it can haul 2.5 tonnes). Projected volume is just 200 per year, or about the same number of Sportages that Kia sold last month. Like we said, baby steps. To put a positive spin on it, the XUV500 will double Mahindra's Kiwi car-sales volume.
It's definitely a second-tier vehicle compared with the latest Japanese and Korean SUVs, but then it's priced accordingly. The powertrain is very good: a 2.2-litre turbo diesel by Austrian company AVL, matched to a Japanese Aisin six-speed automatic (the same unit that's used in the SsangYong Tivoli). It's no ball of fire - especially when the XUV weighs two-and-a-half tonnes - but the engine is linear and the gearbox smooth.
The XUV rides on a car-like monocoque chassis, but the handling of the AWD model we sampled at launch was more akin to a heavy-duty off-road vehicle. The steering loads up quickly and the suspension settles uncomfortably over bumpy open-road corners. This, and the car's considerable weight, are a mystery given the crossover-type construction.
So the XUV500 is a bit of a mixed bag. It looks the part. Build quality is excellent but the cabin plastics and panel gaps aren't. The powertrain is slick but the chassis wobbles.
It's also only achieved four stars in Ancap testing. Shah describes crash-test results as a "state of mind".
"We have produced 160,000 of these vehicles and I am not aware of a single fatality," he says.
It's likely that the XUV will mark a turning point for Mahindra, with future models being developed on shared platforms with subsidiary SsangYong. "I cannot give you a timeline for this," says Shah, "but it is happening."

By the way, it's the "XUV five-double-0", not "XUV five-hundred". Model names ending in "double-O" are very much a Mahindra thing, apparently.