Quote:
Originally Posted by GTO
Surprisingly, Mahindra has been raising the prices of its dud product. From the time of launch, the base variant has gone up by 50K on the road, and the top now costs 80K more.
Spacious, nice diesel engine, acceptable interior quality...but the horrible looks & bumpy ride quality keep people away. |
Exactly. GTO -as usual- has nailed it. I always felt the Quanto was brilliant as a concept. In fact, it has also become a good example of how (not) to ruin a great concept by flawed and half-hearted execution. Here was a proper compact SUV based on a proper ladder frame platform, unlike those sissy 'Cross' hatches. And it has most characteristics of proper SUV covered. High seating, good view of the road, space, and along with it the excellent 1.5 liter motor that also manages to get under the small car mark. And to top it all off, Mahindra engineers added those extra jump seats at the back too! (Indians love lots of seats in their SUV's, don't we?).
But then, the same people retained the look of the Xylo, retained the same crudely designed and cheaply built interiors, and didn't really try to fix the dynamics either.
The thing with that car, apart from the obvious bad design, and image issues related to the Xylo is that though Mahindra always positioned it as an urban lifestyle vehicle, it always had this unmistakable vibe (no pun intended) of a utility vehicle or a commercial vehicle, something which it could never escape from. It looks rather mute and tame by itself, and then it has the body of the Xylo to contend with, to make things worse.
The interior is really spacious, but the dash looks like that of a commercial people carrier and not a lifestyle vehicle. The seats though comfy are really cheap and flat (they do get lumbar support surprisingly). There are also the weird green plastics in places, which add to the cheap feel. And the lesser said about it's driving manners and ride quality, the better.
All this again shows how Mahindra didn't make any real attempt to distinguish it from the Xylo, OR to make the Quanto anywhere closer to an urban compact SUV.
Mahindra should have launched this car with a more aggressive front, bigger and meatier wheels, a better-looking and darker coloured dash than the current beige and brown affair, and additional kit like roof rails (Don't know why they skipped it earlier, roof rails are like a norm for all kinds SUV's), scuff plates, better and fatter seats with those 'flexi-seating' combinations for added practicality, and maybe even a sunroof in the top trim, to better justify the lifestyle aspirations of the Quanto. And I didn't even utter the word '4WD' yet. It would have been more expensive, but it would have made one hell of a package. And I don't see why such a car wouldn't have sold well.
They had a chance to fix things this time, and they did partially fix the front end design and the dynamics, but as GTO said, it was "too little, too late". Now no one's gonna buy a dud seller just because it got a new front end. The interiors are almost the same apart from a few minor changes (I was the one who saw the very first testing mule of the facelift and gave the pics to Autocar, and I can tell the interior is still kind of a letdown from what I could see of that car), and the rear looks don't improve either.
This is one car whose obvious weaknesses far overshadowed it's many hidden strengths. It was only a matter of showcasing it's strengths and cleverly hiding it's weaknesses. But Mahindra, the same company who sold an ancient Bolero in absolute heaps, just by clever positioning and marketing and regular updates, couldn't manage the same with the Quanto. And I'm shocked to hear they raised the prices.
(PS: I don't own a Quanto, nor am I any big fanboy of it 😋, I only said what I felt about it.
Would also like to hear GTO's say on this. He is after all the Boss, and he also tested the original car thoroughly for T-BHP.)