Mahindra's global SUV christened XUV500

Designed and developed entirely in-house by Mahindra, the XUV500 is Mahindra’s first global SUV platform, with significant inputs in styling and development from customers across the globe. In fact, consumer research for the Mahindra XUV500 was carried out in various Western markets, South Africa and India, with testing and validation of the product being done across Europe, Australia and South Africa among others.

Conceptualised with the aim of creating an altogether new category between the Scorpio and high-end SUVs, the XUV500 is the next generation SUV targeted at Generation X, where the double O connotes the added Oomph value in the product, the company said. The XUV500 is contemporary, truly stylised with sophisticated technologies and incorporates global manufacturing quality.

Designed at M&M’s research and development facility, the Chennai-based Mahindra Research Valley, the XUV500 is also the country’s first indigenously developed monocoque SUV with the first transverse engine offering from Mahindra. In fact, all research and development activities for this global SUV were aligned with global standards of quality, technology, testing norms, regulations and emissions from the beginning.

The vehicle will be manufactured at M&M’s future-ready manufacturing facility at Chakan in Maharashtra, where again innovative engineering, state-of-the-art technologies and manufacturing excellence are simply par for the course. The company will also launch the XUV500 in South Africa under the same  name.