Now, there is something interesting cooking at Mahindra’s headquarters. We know about the S101, S102, Scorpio & XUV500 facelifts but what nobody knows about is this mysterious Mahindra mule which has been spied a couple of times earlier.
Sporting an exposed rear-mounted spare wheel, this is speculated to be U301 (codename) which is nothing but the Next-Gen Bolero. And from the earlier spyshots, it appears to be smaller than current Bolero and a possible sub 4-meter candidate.
And in these latest spyshots, shared by our reader Elvis Pradeep N from somewhere in Chennai, we can say with conviction that it is significantly smaller than the Scorpio which it is running almost parallel with.
It also appears to be shorter and narrower than Scorpio. So, this reaffirms our projection that this, in all probability, is a sub 4 meter SUV which Mahindra is preparing but we just do not have full faith in calling it a Bolero. Bolero has been a semi-urban and rural market seller with interior space being its prime USP (unique selling preposition). Why would Mahindra want to cull it up?
Then one of our colleagues takes us through another possible direction – the possibility of this being ‘ONE’ of the variants of the Next-Gen Bolero which may sit in the sub 4 meter bracket providing significant price advantage to the customers. And then there may be the regular full-sized variants on offer.
Since this is a sub-4 meter UV, Mahindra will have to use engines which adhere to the ‘Small’ car definition and this points to the 1.5L 100PS diesel engine from the Quanto and the new under-development 1.2L petrol engine for the S101/S102.
Elvis further informs us that this mysterious Mahindra utility vehicle is smaller in height than the Scorpio and yet the corners and bends look like a more upmarket SUV. He further says, that when this UV zoomed past him on the road, there was no significant diesel engine clatter like the Bolero and instead the exhaust note was more subtle, a possibility of Mahindra testing the 1.2L petrol motor. He also says that it does have a few design cues taken from the larger XUV500.
Related: SPIED: XUV500 Automatic Test Mule Spotted With Visual Aisin Connection; Launch Next Year
