XUV500 has been a brisk seller for Mahindra. That can be attributed to its torquey engine, interesting looks and a terrific overall value for money preposition. The Mahindra’s flagship has maintained its demand despite the oncoming of the competition till now and to face the onslaught better-equipped, they plan to launch a facelift in the market.
Spyshots of camouflaged XUV500 facelift have been doing rounds for sometime but Autocar India has played a masterstroke and has leaked absolutely uncamouflaged pics of the 2015 version.
The front nose gets a redesigned layout which reminds us of the Toyota Prado (okay a wee bit!). Apart from the new orange-red color we notice here, the grille gets a new chrome treatment and then there are those flashy fog lamps integrated into a redesigned front bumper. It will be interesting to see the same set-up on the W4 (which comes devoid of fog lamps). The bigger change is the new headlamps which appear to be divided into two parts (for two projectors) by S-shaped floating LED Daytime Running Lights. It also gets a pseudo-aluminium skid plate.
From the angle above we also see new 10 spoke alloy wheels, which look fantastic. The sides and the rear profile (pic below) remain largely unchanged sans a slight alteration to the registration plate holder. It is known widely that Mahindra has been working on an automatic version of the SUV. Although still unconfirmed, but this facelift is expected to sport the speculated 6-speed Aisin-sourced automatic gearbox and with a bump of around 30bhp from the same 2.2 liter diesel engine. The 6-speed manual version is also expected get some tweaks for overall efficiency enhancement.
Now, the most surprising part is that Autocar claims that this new 2015 Mahindra XUV500 facelift may be launched by May, which is just next month! But the pics, which may have leaked from some photo-shoot, showcase an absolutely complete product and do hint at an early oncoming….