Aussie input for new Mahindra ute

MAHINDRA is going to build a new global ute to rival the Ranger and HiLux, and the end product will be shaped by feedback from Australian buyers, dealers and engineers.

The Indian industrial giant has confirmed plans to offer an all-new ute range around “financial year 2027”, and the company’s head of automotive, Veejay Nakra, has confirmed that the brand will be listening to Australian feedback in order to give the vehicle its best chance of success in this market and other global locations.

When asked if the new global ute product is going to aim up at key rivals such as the Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux – both of which were extensively tested and developed in the Australian market – Mr Nakra suggested that’s the aim of the program.

“It will be a full scale lifestyle pick-up, and the brands that you talked about would definitely be in the competing set,” he said, when asked if the targets are Australia’s best-selling vehicles, the Ranger and HiLux.

The Indian brand already tests and works on its new products across Australia, having conducted more than 50,000 kilometres of local ‘torture testing’ on the new XUV700 family SUV and the recently launched Scorpio 4x4 SUV.

Mr Nakra suggested that, when it comes to a new-generation ute, the brand will be all ears for feedback in its important export markets, with Aussie voices expected to be the loudest in the room.

“We will be having a conversation with dealers in Australia to gain the kind of local insights that we require to adapt the product to suit specific market requirements,” he said.

“While it is a global pick-up for Australia, we will work with our local channel partners with the customers of Australia to bring all of those insights into creating a proper pick-up,” Mr Nakra said, before expanding on that notion to suggest that specification and tuning for specific market needs is not off the cards.

“So it won’t just be a product that, you know, we won’t just launch and launch the same product everywhere, we would make it for the specific markets,” he said, suggesting benchmarking against the local success stories in the ute segment seems a logical step.

There’s a lot more detail and information that hasn’t yet been shared by the company, but Mr Nakra did explain that it would “make sense” to use the same underpinnings as the Scorpio 4x4 SUV. That would imply that the new model will have a ladder-frame chassis, the option of four-wheel drive with a low-range transfer case, and it may even make use of the same 2.2-litre mHawk turbo-diesel four-cylinder engine. That is all still to be confirmed, however.

Mr Nakra did state, though, that the brand would be mindful of payload requirements and towing capacity expectations from markets such as Australia, and he implied that, with the aim of meeting the needs of both the trade ute and lifestyle-focused market, the company is eager to offer a value for money alternative to the mainstream makers.

“We would create a range that would cover different categories and segments, but it’s very difficult for me to say whether it would go all the way from the lowest end to the top,” he said. “The loading and the towing capabilities of the products between the SUV and the ute may be different. I'm just putting that as a use case.”

For reference, the Scorpio SUV’s maximum towing capacity is 750kg (unbraked) and 2500kg (braked), while most midsize ute models offer up to 3500kg braked towing capacity.

Mahindra is plotting an aggressive expansion program in Australia over the coming years, confirming the new ute is en route, as well as an array of electric SUV models due from 2025 or so.

That’s beyond the two models it has just launched here in the last two months - the aforementioned Scorpio and XUV700 - both of which offer assertive value propositions for their intended market audience.

The company is working to “pivot” from rural ute-oriented customers to lifestyle and city segments, and is in the process of expanding its national “touchpoints” from 50 to 60 by the end of 2023, including new dealerships being launched in Adelaide, Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne.

The brand does not currently report its sales figures to the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, so at the time of writing there is no data on how successful the brand has been in launching its new SUV range.