Engine and Performance
Where the Mahindra Design Studio took styling inputs from Pininfarina in Italy, the engineering of the MPV was done in yet another continent – read USA. The Marazzo is the first product from the company to be jointly developed by Mahindra Automotive North American (MANA) and Mahindra R&D India. This three-nation joint effort, according to the Indian auto major, has helped in overcoming the steep learning curve it needed for making a better quality and more premium car. With the help of the minds from the Detroit centre, the company has developed a new body-on-frame construction with front-wheel drive and transversely-mounted engine: a first in the segment. The promise here is to offer the durability of a frame-based vehicle but with the packaging and efficiency of a front-wheel-drive vehicle. Mahindra have been successful to a large extent because the Marazzo drives more like a car and is a far cry from other MPV models from their stable.
Powering it is a new 1,497-cc four-cylinder diesel that makes 123 PS at 3,500 rpm but more importantly, the majority of the 300 Nm of torque comes in at 1,750 rpm. This makes the drive extremely effortless and without the usual turbo-lag that many diesel engines are notorious for. To test it to its limits, we got on board five individuals plus me in the driving seat, and, much to our surprise, this compact oil-burner – that weighs just 141.13 kg – didn’t let us down and sprinted to 100 km/h, where the driver’s info-display played spoilsport and sounded the over-speeding alarm. It’s not just the outright performance, but, thanks to the flat torque curve, it can also pull from low speeds in higher gears. Talking of which, the engine comes mated to a six-speed gearbox which, unlike older Mahindra MPVs, has a car-like shift feel and short throws. And, thankfully, the knob doesn’t vibrate frantically either. The use of aluminium shift forks and shift tower mass dampener have really helped this cause and make the Marazzo feel more premium.
Using the new learnings from MANA, Mahindra have also used lightweight and low friction materials in the engine which has reduced the diesel clatter. This also gets great sound insulation that has made the cabin pretty quiet and, in turn, more premium. These newly-introduced technologies make this diesel fairly efficient, too, with an ARAI-certified mileage of 17.6 km/l. Mahindra claim the Marazzo to be 10 per cent more efficient than its rivals in real-world conditions.
Ride and Handling
Since the Mahindra Marazzo is positioned as a premium urban MPV, passenger comfort is of utmost importance. Top executives from Mahindra’s Detroit facility informed us that they have employed lightweight and strong aluminium parts on the suspension to reduce the unsprung weight. It gets the tested — double wishbone in front and twist beam rear suspension setup but these come with isolators to keep the cabin comfortable even over bad road surfaces. We didn’t get to drive the Marazzo over some challenging roads since we were restricted to the smooth test-track, but over the few speed-humps, the MPV didn’t bounce around nor did it feel too stiff. For most parts, it remained comfortable, though we will be able to give a more detailed ride report once we get the car for a longer duration on public roads.
What we can confirm is that the electrically-assisted steering is reasonably light and has decent feedback. Also, the fact that it has a good turning radius will make it ideal for the urban environment. Mahindra have tried to keep the centre of gravity low, which does make it predictable to manoeuvre and give it good body control. Since it’s such a long vehicle, it does tend to have the usual understeer which most front-wheel drive cars are cursed with. The suspension, which has been tuned for comfort, also tends to feel soft and gives out a fair amount of body roll while negotiating fast bends. Having discs on all four ends ensures a strong bite, but one can feel the vehicle pitch during hard braking, courtesy the soft-sprung suspension.
Price
The Mahindra Marazzo base M2 seven-seater variant has been priced at Rs 9.99 lakh (introductory ex-showroom) which seems to be a bargain. Sadly, it misses out on a lot of features which our M8 variant had, with its premium sticker price of Rs 13.90 lakh. This brings the top-end Marazzo close to the base version of its biggest rival — the Toyota Innova Crysta.
However, the launch timing isn’t ideal as many a buyer might wait for the soon to be launched new Maruti Suzuki Ertiga, which is expected to be more premium and less expensive.
An urban people-carrier with the changing road conditions needs an automatic and petrol version, both of which are not on offer as of now on the Mahindra Marazzo, which according to me is a big setback for this otherwise strong product. The joint forces of Detroit-Italy-and-India have ensured to make this new MPV from the company the best Mahindra yet.
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