The 12th Edition of the gruelling Desert Storm rally across the Thar Desert saw the Mahindra XUV500 take top honours.
Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd are India’s leading SUV manufacturers and, like before, they just have to go about proving it every now and then. Affordability is one thing, but actual capability is what gets the cheque-books out. What better way to demonstrate that to take a commanding win in the infamous Desert Storm, which ran for over 3,000 km across the likes of Sadarseher, Bikaner, Jaisalmer & Jaipur.
Team Mahindra Adventure’s Super XUV500 finished on top with the fastest time and that was enough to have them crowned overall champions of Desert Storm 2014. There was yet another claim to fame with the XUV, becoming the first diesel-powered vehicle to ever win the Desert Storm.
The Super XUV500 has been on quite a winning spree at the Indian National Rally Championship’s SUV Category and now, with a first place finish in the ‘Xtreme’ category of the 2014 Desert Storm. At the wheel was multi-time Desert Storm winner Sunny Sidhu and his co-driver P V S Murthy. They finished with a commendable lead; over 20 seconds ahead of the next duo. Here are the times:
- Sunny Sidhu / P V S Murthy (Mahindra Adventure) – Position 1 (12:47:42)
- Sandeep Sharma / Varun Davessar (Team Thunderbolt) – Position 2 (13:08:20)
- Amarjeet Pal Buwal / Nakul Mendiratta (Team Thunderbolt) – Position 3 (13:13.34)
- Lohitt Urs / K. Kumar (Mahindra Adventure) – Position 4 (13:18:35)
There were a total of 55 teams in the ‘Xtreme’ category, 30 teams in the ‘Ndure’ category, and 20 teams in the ‘Xplore’ category.
