Mahindra Thar Roxx... No, Wait — It's the Thar OG: First Drive Review

Mahindra hasn't restyled the Thar — it's renamed it. The Thar OG keeps the silhouette everyone knows but overhauls almost everything underneath. We drove the diesel automatic to see if it's still the same off-roader at heart.

It's gone and renamed it. Not restyled — renamed. Say hello to the Thar OG. That's Mahindra's own choice of words, not ours, and yes, everyone involved is aware of what OG usually stands for — this doesn't appear to be about the acronym. It's the same boxy three-door shape you already love or already have opinions about, but underneath, almost nothing is the same car.

The original three-door Thar arrived in 2020 and pretty much invented its own category in India: off-roader as lifestyle statement. Four lakh-odd buyers later, Mahindra clearly didn't want to mess with a winning shape, so the OG keeps the boxy stance and round headlamps. What's changed sits underneath — a new platform, new suspension hardware, new steering, and two engines that now make a bit more of everything.

Prices open at ₹10.32 lakh (ex-showroom), and this review focuses on the variant most buyers will actually cross-shop against a Scorpio-N or a Jimny: the diesel automatic, available in both RWD and AWD.

Exterior: Butcher Than Before

Start at the front, because that's where most of the fuss is. There's a new grille, new LED headlamps with C-shaped daytime running lights — very deliberately not subtle — and fog lamps Mahindra insists on calling "ice-cube" units. They at least earn their keep this time with a cornering function, swinging light into the bend rather than just looking good in a car park.

Both bumpers are new, front and rear, sitting over a wider track that gives the OG a more planted stance than before. The range-topper rides on new 19-inch alloys, up from 18s, wrapped around bigger disc brakes on all four corners — a genuinely useful upgrade over the old drums-at-the-back setup. Round the back there are new LED tail lamps, and the palette grows by two: Artemis Silver and Jeans Blue join six carry-over shades for eight colours in total.

The DRLs borrow the same signature look as the Thar Roxx, and overall the car looks noticeably butcher than the model it replaces.

Cabin: Finish Over Function

Inside, the changes are more about finish than function. The top-spec test car gets Truffle Brown leatherette on the seats and steering wheel — sounds like a menu item, looks genuinely upmarket against the black dash. The second row gets a bit more thought too, with a soft armrest and a proper cupholder.

On tech, this trim brings a roughly 10-inch touchscreen with wireless charging, a reversing camera, tyre pressure monitoring, and front parking sensors — genuinely handy on something this wide with corners this hard to judge.

Safety is the bigger story. Six airbags feature in total, though only on the top-end variant — dual airbags are standard across the range, and the base variant misses out on many features. Four of the six are the newer head-pelvis-thorax-shoulder type covering both rows, backed by a comprehensive electronic stability programme with rollover mitigation built into the roll cage. For a body-on-frame off-roader, that's a proper safety upgrade, not a box-ticking one.

What's Really Changed: The Platform

The bit engineers will tell you is the real story here is what's underneath. The Thar OG sits on a new, stiffer platform called M_Glyde 4G, and out back there's a new PENTALINK rear suspension with a Watts link — which, translated out of brochure-speak, means the rear axle is now located properly, so it doesn't wander about under hard cornering the way live axles sometimes can.

Layered on top of that is Mahindra's new DAVINCI damping system, with frequency-dependent dampers that soften over small, sharp bumps and firm up for the big stuff — a first for a body-on-frame SUV. On broken city roads, the difference is noticeable: less head-toss over expansion joints, more of a settled, absorbent feel than the outgoing car managed.

Driving Impressions

Steering has gone electric this time, and it transforms the Thar's low-speed manners. Parking the old car used to be an upper-body workout; this one is genuinely light without feeling numb at speed. Power steering is now simply part of the package, and it makes manoeuvring the Thar far easier than before.

The automatic gearbox shuffles through its ratios without much drama, which is exactly what you want in something that's also expected to do this: four-wheel drive, an electronic locking differential, and terrain modes for mud, sand and snow. Worth flagging — the locking diff and terrain modes are exclusive to the four-wheel-drive version. Stick with rear-wheel drive on the diesel automatic and you get a terrain assist function instead: a bit less clever, but still genuinely useful. Either way, it remains a very capable off-roader, with the terrain modes unlocking even more potential.

Variants and Pricing

On paper, the Thar OG spans three trims — AXT, LXT and ZXT — across three engines, including a lower-output diesel carried over unchanged for the entry-level car. The diesel automatic driven here is available only in the two higher trims, LXT or ZXT, with either rear- or four-wheel drive. For this exact configuration — top-spec, four-wheel drive, automatic — prices land just under ₹19 lakh, ex-showroom.

The bigger features are reserved for the LXT and ZXT trims, so it's worth not getting fooled by the attractive base-variant price point.

Verdict

Facelift or reinvention? Genuinely somewhere in between. The character hasn't gone anywhere — it still looks like a Thar, still growls like one at idle — but the bits you can't see have had the biggest rethink: a stiffer platform, a better-located rear suspension, cleverer dampers, and a steering rack that no longer fights you in a car park.

Mahindra has built a better all-rounder without quite civilising the bit that made people fall for the Thar in the first place.