OK Friends, Here is my take on Thar, being a Gypsy owner.
Like i've mentioned in my ownership thread already, i did try a lot to buy a new 550 from showroom and din't get anything but dirty stares from the mahindra showrooms. Finally decided to buy myself a Major and the doorless jeep idea just din't click at home. In the end, wrote to Behram asking him about Thar and all he suggested to me was to wait (This was in March 2009, close to 2 years now). I ended up buying a Gypsy because i din't want to wait and end up with a hatch.
Now, coming to the Thar, from a price point of view. Personally, i consider Thar to be a serious bang on every buck. Compare it to any car in the market today, you would immediately realize that its serious value for money. I've compared it to an i20 CRDI, E4 Xylo, Storm, Gypsy (Gypsy, it comes with some silver panels somewhere in the inside, i guess..
![Big Grin](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/images/smilies/biggrin.png)
I dunno how else can anybody explain the price of it. When you look at the super cheap prices of its spares, this becomes all the more complicated) and in every case, Thar wins! If you are not into serious offroading, this car is really a go anywhere do anything vehicle! Looks great, drives great, priced great, good efficiency, what more could one need. You can do all your nature trails, jungle trails, safaris, birding, camping, leh/sikkim trips, smoke dash at traffic signals, mile munching on highways et.al..
Now, coming to the Thar, from interiors point of view. Again, talking from personal experience. Owning a Jeep/Gypsy (Thar is still a Jeep) isn't like a car. So, until you own one and experience, you wouldn't really understand the problems.
Starting with the poor dash: An open/soft top jeep would let so much dust inside it even after having the windows rolled up, that they turn brown after one mud-road drive. I wouldn't get them cleaned with a dashboard cleaning solution after every drive. If the dashboard is replacable easily and cheap, i am ok with it. So, learn to live with it as long as they are functional and cheap to replace.
As an example: the front bumper of a Gypsy costs 1200Rs and mind you, it is a metal bumper. If it is 1200 Rs, i wouldn't mind a few dents on it when OTRing. After an year or so, as part of the upkeep expenses, i could get its bumper replaced with new.
Coming to the hardtop: This is a serious gap. Imagine taking Thar to a trip where your main idea is to hike. You have to literally empty the car before goin anywhere. Mid-way on road, if you even want to take a leak, you always have to leave one person in the car to look after it. This is simply not practical and hence has to be a prio 1 thing for a life style vehicle and can also be acheived quite easily (relatively).
The next most important thing missing is the AC. With this, many other things start coming in. How easy is it to make the current Thar with a hard-top heat-insulated and dust-insulated (to maximum extent possible). Why i come here is for the follwing reason. My gypsy, being a factory-fit hard-top already, lets water inside the cabin during rains (yes, i've already sealed my air vents in the front but still..). With the current winshield (roll-up points, foldable joints..), from the doors, at the b-pillar joins, can Thar be sealed from water leaking in? If yes, great. If not, please do take care of this.
Everything else which are relatively simple, i would learn to live with or fix it myself.
Finally, if i had to choose the Thar, would i? 100% Yes* with the hard-top and an AC. I would've taken my family out to enjoy nature in car-like comfort, at car-like speeds and on jeep-like trails. But, i would not have been into trails where i know that my front-end could get damaged. Let me clarify here: There is no shame for me to say that i would not do such a trail. I don't like breaking expensive things in the car just for the heck of completing a trail.
@BD Sir's team: Please try to make it dust-insulated, water-sealed HT + AC and stuff, if not, a lot of life-styler/non-offroad customers would be very unhappy with the vehicle.
On the other hand, had you left this car with a solid axle**, the offroad crowd would've jumped on it and would've never complained about leaks or squeaks
Sincerely wishing Thar a big success.
Cheers and applause to BD & Spikey & rest of the team,
Deepak
*- I would've still bought a Gypsy purely for OTRs and for those remote Leh escapades.
**- Had this happened, you could forget about *