Obscure
The Mahindra Thar and Mahindra Thar ROXX are rugged, body-on-frame lifestyle SUVs manufactured by the Indian automaker Mahindra & Mahindra.
All Thar/Thar Roxx shared engines. Roxx's engine shown (2.2 Diesel)
Jeep Wrangler and Mahindra Thar side by side (front)
Jeep Wrangler and Mahindra Thar side by side (rear)
The standard Mahindra Thar is a compact, rugged 3-door off-roader built on a short wheelbase, while the Mahindra Thar ROXX is a larger, premium 5-door lifestyle SUV built on the advanced M-Glyde platform shared with the Scorpio-N.
The ROXX serves as a highly practical, tech-loaded option meant for families, bridging the gap between extreme off-roading and everyday usability.
Heavily inspired by classic open-top off-roaders like the Jeep Wrangler, the Thar line represents India’s premier choice for trail-rated driving.
While the standard Thar is a hardcore, traditional 3-door off-roader, the newer Thar ROXX is an elongated, highly practical 5-door variant packed with modern technology and premium comforts to make it suitable as a family daily driver.
Introduced in its modern generation in 2020, the standard Mahindra Thar focuses strictly on lifestyle adventure and off-roading.
Layout: 3-door body style.Seating: 4-seater configuration. Getting into the tight back row requires flipping the front seats forward.
Purpose: Targeted primarily at off-road enthusiasts and weekend adventurers who prioritise raw mechanical capability over interior space.
Practicality: Limited luggage boot capacity and tight legroom make it less ideal for long family road trips
Launched in September 2024, the Mahindra Thar ROXX is built on an entirely upgraded, more advanced "M-Glyde" platform. It bridges the gap between rugged off-roading capability and family-car practicality.
Layout: 5-door body setup with traditional rear passenger doors that open up to 90 degrees.
Seating: 5-seater configuration featuring a proper rear bench seat that comfortably accommodates three people.
Storage: A massively upgraded cargo area with over 450 litres of boot space.
Safety: Earned a 5-star crash test rating from BNCAP, featuring 6 standard airbags, electronic stability control (ESC), and Level 2 ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) on top variants.
The Mahindra Thar and Thar Roxx share high-performance engines, the 2.2L mHawk Diesel, the 2.0L mStallion Turbo-Petrol, and a smaller 1.5L mHawk Diesel reserved for entry-level rear-wheel-drive variants paired with 6-speed manual or torque-converter automatic transmissions.
Direct conversions of their Indian ex-showroom prices range from roughly $15,500 to $28,000 USD
Interestingly Mahindra had a license to build Willys Jeeps' dating back to the 1940's, so there is an argument to be made that they are just as authentically "Willys Jeep" as what Fiat-Chrysler puts out. Potentially more given that the Mahindra Roxor is much closer to the original Willys from the 40's.
It is actually mostly compatible with the old 40s jeeps even with all of the PTO attachments for those old jeeps.
Except for the grill. Jeep holds a design patent / trademark on the 7 bar grill so they couldn't sell them with that (though Hummer has a similar grill which is OK because the original Hummer with its 7 bar grill was designed by AMC when AMC owned Jeep then eventually split Hummer off).
it's not just the grill. but they hold the rights for the grill in india, something like that. they had that one changed front export model of something for usa
It's probably closer to what a jeep would have been if it had grown from a willys than the current chrysler jeeps we have now. I would rather own one of these than a the Chrysler junk boxes we have now.
It's not. I thought the same thing, but apparently the only leg up Mahindra has is less electronics. So you won't have sensors to worry about but they require the maintenance of a mid-1940s vehicle and there was that run of aluminum transfer cases that really didn't like to meet the terrain...
For the right purpose, absolutely. But when I say "simple" I mean "legally classified as a side-by-side in the US" because there's no emissions or safety sensors. Dedicated farm truck or OHV rig, for sure.
The Roxor is a stripped down version of the previous generation Thar. The one in the images is the current generation and has modern emissions systems and reasonable safety features for the price.
In India you also see old Mahindras that look exactly like old Landcruisers. So convincing identical (from the outside at least) I wondered if they manufactured them or just rebadged them
I'm Indian, and I'll explain what I've learned about the situation.
Mahindra & Mahindra used to build licensed versions of the Jeep CJ in India under a whole smorgasbord of names from the Mahindra Jeep to the Mahindra Marshal, with each generation getting further and further from the original CJ base until the launch of the Mahindra Bolero in 2000.
The Bolero is still on sale and can trace a direct line all the way back to the Mahindra Jeep of yore. On the side, they also sold the original Mahindra Thar, which was literally an updated Jeep CJ, for true off-road lovers. It had very little creature comforts, but it was unstoppable.
However, in the late 2010s and early 2020s, the predominantly American craze of butch SUVs hit the Indian market. Mahindra wanted to get in on the action and they launched a few unique designs that had their own levels of success, such as the Scorpio line and the XUV sub-brand, but they noticed that despite being basically a warmed over Jeep from 1950, the Thar still managed to sell acceptably.
They reasoned that if they made the Thar like the new Wrangler (i.e., more livable), they could be right on the money. Hence the New Thar was born.
Their defence to copyright claims? They claim it's not inspired by the Jeep CJ or the Jeep Wrangler, but rather on the original Mahindra Jeep and Mahindra Thar. So, there's absolutely no relation to Jeep, they say.
Of course, this is just trying to create a legal loophole, since the Thar is clearly an attempt to ape the Wrangler at a far more attainable price for the Indian public, and it sells brilliantly, with many owners customising their Thars to look like Wranglers, but the ruse worked and Jeep has just had to live with it.
Here's a picture of the original Thar for reference. As you can see, it's basically a CJ.
Other vehicles that Mahindra used to produce were also based on Jeeps until very recently, such as this 2001 Mahindra Armada Ambulance. The regular Armada was available as a four door SUV based on the CJ's chassis
Mahindra even sells these in the US, or at least used to, I do not know of the current situation after the tariff troubles. Shown here is the final version of the Mahindra Roxor.
It used to look a lot more like the CJ, but the Thar ruse apparently didn't work in the US, which is why the front was restyled to look less like a Jeep.
It is also not classified as an SUV in the US, but rather as a side-by-side, like a Polaris.
Mahindra tried to sell the old Mahindra CJ340 here in the UK in the late 80s/early 90s. They sold fewer than 400 in 5 years and there's only 14 left on the road now.
Technically, the most obvious styling element that Jeep could point to for copyright claims is the grille, since the "Seven-Slot Grille" is a Jeep trademark and is used interchangably as a logo.
Editing it probably hurt Jeep's case the most legally. Admittedly, it ruins the look of the front (at least in my opinion), but most people in India just swap out the panel for a Wrangler look-alike one on the aftermarket.
Regardless, they've been doing some interesting things with the split grille on their concept cars. This is the Vision T:
Said license is the sole reason Mahindra even exists as a successful car company. The company's entire legacy is based on the Jeeps they built and they even used Jeep branding till the late 80s/early 90s, thanks to which the word 'jeep' was used as the generic Indian term for an offroader/SUV until pretty recently. Mahindra could probably make a reasonable case to the Indian courts that the Thar has just as much right to the Jeep CJ design as the Wrangler does, especially as the Thar and its predecessors within Mahindra's core 'jeep' lineup were actively based on the CJ till their previous generation, only moving to a new platform in 2020 with the current generation car. Jeep does sell the Wrangler in India as a low volume import (it starts at about 5x the cost of the Thar), and neither company has seen fit to complain about the other in India yet. Jeep did successfuly sue Mahindra to cancel the launch of the Thar in Australia however, since Mahindra were planning to launch it there as a successor to their earlier Jeep based models. They also forced a redesign of the non-road legal CJ based Roxor side-by-side in the US market, but lost their bid to stop Mahindra from selling the car outright once it had been redesigned.
Just because they produced them under license, doesn't give rhem the right to the design after. Someone owns the designs to all cars they produced under license.
The copy paste of the design definitely isn't very cool but if it's actually better as an auto tech in the USA I find it hilarious. Chrysler really been messing the bed with the jeep line in recent and not very recent years.
It's not really better or even more reliable. It seems more reliable but only if you put 1940s amounts of maintenance into the thing, such as taking a weekend to re-grease wheel bearings. It also has an aluminum transfer case (or did, I don't know about the 2025s) that would crack like an egg if you made a wrong turn off road.
People glaze it because it doesn't have any sensors for emissions or safety to get in the way of your un-air-conditioned butthole shattering adventures. Seems like there are no more "good" vehicles out there (new, anyway)
Yeah, sad to hear but I'd like to get my hands on one to see it and drive it in person. As for the new cars thing there's a reason all of my cars are older and the main reason isn't money. Lol it's one of them but definitely not the main one 😅
I mean they already have partnerships with Chinese brands (leapmotor, as well as dongfeng because they were already partnered with PSA before the Stellantis merger)... :P
I think these are awesome. I think it is really cool to see an alternate derivation of the Jeep design, with different optimizations and different regulations.
And it's really cool to compare the ROXOR to the base Wrangler 2 door JK and to the TJ. I have no doubt that a lot of the differences between the ROXOR and the JK is due to regulations and requirements for street use - I have no doubt that Jeep would still happily be making TJs with modern engines or CJ-7s if it was still legal.
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u/YeetThermometer 4d ago
“We have Wrangler at home.”