How the Mahindra Thar was born: Some unheard anecdotes

One day he called in complete frustration that no.one in Mahindra was willing to take up the challenge of releasing the Thar as a regular sales offering.

BHPian DKG recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

A story that needs to be told.

When Behram was developing the Thar internally there were no formal plans to launch in India. I think given his persistence he was allowed to do a parts bin approach.

When the final iteration was created Behram wanted feedback from enthusiasts around the country. We used to meet regularly at offroad events and talked a lot over the phone.

He wanted me and another enthusiast to test the Thar so sent a test vehicle all the way to Hyderabad. I took it offroad and loved it. Gave feedback to Behram and in the following time he carried out various reliability tests before signing off.

One day he called in complete frustration that no.one in Mahindra was willing to take up the challenge of releasing the Thar as a regular sales offering. I think senior management wasn't sure it would be a hit. Behram was almost ready to quit Mahindra over the disappointment. Out of sheer regard and respect for the man I asked him to forward Anand Mahindra's email.

I wrote to Anand explaining how at the core of Mahindra values is the legacy of the Jeep they built and that the Thar symbolises those values to the T. Anand immediately responded to my email wholeheartedly agreeing to what I said. In the emails that ensued between us he marked senior mgt in this topic. He even asked me, eventually, after they took a decision to release the Thar for the Indian market to write out a tweet to share on his twitter, which I did. Anand also asked me to come see him to join Mahindra. With aging parents I couldn't take up his offer as it meant shifting to Bombay.

Behram was elated when senior management cleared release of the Thar. He and his team are entirely responsible for the Thar and the Indian offroad community owes Behram for this great product.

When Behram passed away I wrote to Anand again suggesting an iteration of Thar be released with the BD tag in its nomenclature. He liked the idea...don't think they actually did it.

I have all the emails to support this story of how the Thar got released in India and Behram's amazing legacy saw the light of production.

I bought a Thar from the first lot shipped to Hyderabad and loved it in the years I had it.

I miss him.

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