How I ended up buying Mahindra Thar

Not even in my wildest imagination I had ever thought that my first motorcycle would be a Royal Enfield and my first car would be a Jeep. I had owned several motorcycles since college, a Yamaha, Hero Honda, Kawasaki Bajaj, Kinetic, but after I started working, the first motorcycle I bought all on my own turned out to be a Royal Enfield which kind of was a last minute decision. A decision that I am so glad I took. Same way, the first car I bought on my own turned out to be a Jeep, a Mahindra Thar. Whether or not I will cherish or regret this decision is something that only time will tell.

The idea of owning an open jeep sounds thrilling to almost every guy in our society. Driving around with friends in a dashing, macho looking Thar is a thought lucrative enough to anyone but how many of us actually chase this dream until reality? Answer is, not many. For several reasons, like comfort, security, family, convenience, most of the people would prefer buying another car, even though their heads would turn in envy every time they see someone driving a Thar. Lucky enough for me, even though I too had second thoughts, I was able to not only have this dream but also to make it come true.

Also read: Mahindra Thar as Family Vehicle, City Driving & Daily Use?

I could have afforded buying a car several years ago but for one reason or another, I always kept postponing it. There was this thought that kept lingering on in my head that I do not really need a car and buying one would only add unnecessary expense. My Enfield was serving me well as a means of daily commute to work and back home and for other regular commutes including trips as well. Then in Feb 2014, I finally decided that maybe it was time for me to buy a car and so the tiresome job of car hunting and finalizing on one started. I never wanted to buy a Sedan or Hatchback but only an SUV. The first car that I always thought I would buy one day for a long time was Tata Safari. But when I actually started to work on which car to buy, I gave up the idea of Safari because of high maintenance cost. After a lot of thought and research, I settled on buying a Renault Duster. It was within budget, comfortable, good in terms of both performance and looks and I liked it. While I was about to visit a Renault showroom and book one, one of my friends suggested that I should also look at Ford Ecosport. I never really liked the looks of the Ecosport so I had not really looked into it so far but then started researching on it upon my friend’s suggestion. To my surprise, I was getting almost all the features of Duster in an Ecosport but at a much lesser price. Even though I wasn’t still very convinced with the looks, I changed my idea of buying a duster and settled on Ecosport instead. Back then, Ecosport was very much in demand and believe it or not, it’s booking time was anywhere between 6 to 8 months. The showroom guys asked me for a booking amount of Rs. 50,000 and told me that the delivery would happen sometime in August or September if I booked the car in February. Hence the idea of buying an Ecosport was trashed since I had no intention of waiting for so long.

Once Ecosport was off the books, I again decided to move back to the idea of Duster. Buying a sedan or hatchback was anyways not something that I was considering so I decided to once again look into the other SUVs available in Indian market. One day, while I was coming back home on my motorcycle and was waiting at a Red light, a car pulled over right next to me. It was a Black Thar with half canopy, slightly modified and the overall look was awe –inspiring. Like other guys, an open Jeep looked always looked stunning to me as well but I wasn’t seriously really thinking about buying it until that day? The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that this is the car that I really want. I travel around a lot, have been to Ladakh and Spiti several times so buying a car that was powerful enough and could withstand the abuse made sense. It has a 2500 CC engine and a 4WD was costing lesser than 9 lacs on road which really was a great deal since other cars in that category cost a minimum of 17 to 18 lacs on road. So I asked myself the question, shall I buy a Thar and the answer immediately was, why not? The only apprehension was that the vehicle was zero in terms of comfort and impractical for daily use in Delhi because of the open soft cover but that was a compromise that I was ready to make.

For the next few days, I kept on researching on Thar and the more I looked into it, the more I was keen on buying it. One day I was surfing the net, researching on Thar, when I noticed an ad on a website. It was an offer to buy a house in Delhi at a price that invoked my interest immediately. I picked up my phone and called the dealer and to my surprise, a couple of months later, I ended up buying that house. All my finances, savings were drained in making the down payment and so the idea of buying a car was postponed yet again for at least another year.

A year later, I again started working on buying a car. Until now, I had my mind made up that I would only buy a Thar and nothing else. It was a long and painful wait of an entire year and every day I waited for the day when I will drive home my dream car. When I finally had enough money in my savings account to make the down payment, I contacted the nearest Mahindra showroom near my house and worked out a deal. Initially I thought of buying it in Red or Maroon but then changed my mind to Black. I gave them a check for the booking amount but to my surprise, a couple of days before the delivery, they told me that they did not have a Thar available in Black. It was kind of very disappointing and the only option I was provided by the showroom was either to wait for a month or to buy it in some other color. Though I wasn’t very interested, I still thought of looking at a White Thar and quite honestly, ended up liking it. Here are a couple of pictures.

Modified Mahindra Thar

Modified Mahindra Thar

I may just have bought this car but the only reason I didn’t was because they had a lot of accessories installed to it. Some of the accessories, like a tracker, they told me could not be taken of so I had no option but to pay an additional Rs. 50,000 apart from the cost of the vehicle. I did not really like this part and decided to move to another dealer. To my surprise, they were quite fast in their deals and within two days, I drove home a shining Black Thar.

Modified Mahindra Thar

Also read: Mahindra Thar as Family Vehicle, City Driving & Daily Use?

As I mentioned above, whether I will cherish or regret this decision is something only time will tell. For now, I am happy cruising around the city in it and waiting for the day when I will take it up the hills, specially to Ladakh.