It was only a week ago when Mahindra officially commenced entertaining bookings for its upcoming compact SUV – the XUV300. The minimum token amount is pegged at Rs 20,000. Back in December last year, when the XUV300 was unveiled for the first time, the carmaker confirmed that the SUV will launch in February 2019. Well, now we have a confirmed date. The Mahindra XUV300 will launch in India on February 14, 2019.

The Mahindra SUV300 is essentially a tweaked version of the SsangYong Tivoli, a compact SUV which is sold in several international markets. For India, however, Mahindra decided to repackage the SUV and rebadged it as the XUV300 as customers are more aware of its own name than its South Korean subsidiary.

Mahindra will sell the XUV300 in a total of three trim levels – W4, W6 and W8. The W8 trim will also be sold with an option pack and it will carry the W8 (O) tag, at least on paper. The standard set of features include dual airbags, disc brakes on all wheels, LED-powered taillights, all power windows and ABS with EBD. The fully-loaded trims will include dual-zone climate control, LED DRLS, 7 airbags, 17-inch alloy wheels, a sunroof and an 8.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system.

The SUV will be available with both petrol and diesel engines. Mahindra hasn’t revealed the complete set of specifications for the engines but has mentioned that the 1.2-litre turbocharged petrol mill will have 200Nm of torque and the 1.5-litre turbo-diesel motor will offer 300Nm of torque. Those figures make the Mahindra XUV300 the torquiest SUV in its segment. Even the mighty Scorpio can’t live with the diesel’s torque figure. At the time of launch, both engines will come mated to a 6-speed manual transmission.

Mahindra will offer the XUV300 in six colours for the exterior – Sunburst Orange, Red Rage, Aqua Marine, Napoli Black, Pearl White and Dsat Silver. All colours options will be offered with both the engines and on all variants. A dual-tone paint scheme is also on the cards.

The Mahindra XUV300 is expected to fall in the price range of Rs 8-12 lakh. That means it will not only take on the entry and mid-range variants of the Hyundai Creta but also compete with the higher-spec variants of the Ford EcoSport.