Saar: Scheduled to launch by September 2018, it was earlier codenamed as the Mahindra U321.
We are pretty sure that you must have read many stories from several Indian publications about Mahindra prepping a new MPV for the market. Codenamed as the Mahindra U321, it was spotted testing on several occasions in India. Now, Mahindra has revealed that its newest three-row MPV will actually carry the name Marazzo. Don’t go searching into your English dictionaries as the nameplate is actually derived from Basque, which is a sub-language of Spanish. Translate it and you’ll end up with the word – Shark. Mahindra claims that it is an apt name because of the MPV’s shark-inspired design.
It seems then Mahindra has some sort of favouritism towards animals when it comes to designing or even naming its products. We already have the Scorpio and the XUV500, which has a “cheetah-inspired” design. Anyway, back to the fish in hand. Sorry, the Shark in hand! It will be the first car that will be manufactured in India which will have some DNA from Pininfarina. We never expected Pininfarina to make its Indian debut with an MPV but since it is owned by Mahindra, it didn’t really have a choice!
With Pininfarina, the Mahindra Design Studio helped Marazzo gain its design. The company claims that:
“Marazzo’s shark-inspired design is evident in the streamlined and aerodynamic shape, in the overall silhouette and in the front grille inserts which resemble shark-like teeth and adds to the vehicle’s aggressive stance”.
The Marazzo is also the first product that has been developed and engineered through a collaboration between Mahindra North America Technical Centre (MNATC) and Mahindra Research Valley (MRV) in Chennai. It will be underpinned by an all-new platform which, Mahindra claims, helps it achieve a smooth ride, agile handling while having a commodious and quiet cabin. The Mahindra Marazzo will have the largest footprint (wheelbase x front track) of any Mahindra vehicle.
Mahindra also stated that the Marazzo has been benchmarked against global standards of technology, testing, validation norms, emissions, safety and quality. Bringing all those aspects into one package, the Mahindra Marazzo will be manufactured at the company’s Nasik facility and will go on sale by September 2018.
As far as its placement in the market is concerned, it will slot above the likes of Maruti Suzuki Ertiga and Renault Lodgy but will undercut the Toyota Innova Crysta. Price-wise, the Marazzo should fall between the Rs 10-15 lakh mark and at the time of launch, it will be offered only with a diesel engine. While a new petrol engine is under development for the new MPV, it is expected to be offered with both manual and automatic transmissions from the start. And yes, the Marazzo will co-exist with the Mahindra Xylo.
Inside the cabin, the Marazzo will be offered with a 7- or an 8-seat layout. While the former configuration will have two captain seats in the second row, the latter will replace them with a bench seat for three. Other design cues include a dashboard-embedded touchscreen infotainment system with support for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, leatherette seats and roof-mounted AC vents for the rear two rows. On the outside, the Marazzo will get projector headlamps, LED DRLs and an optional shark-fin antenna. You’d think that a shark-inspired design should be completed, by default, with a shark-fin antenna on top. Weird!
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