Yahoo Autos The Mahindra Marazzo from Michigan Will Revolutionize India's Road Safety
Until now, there hasn't been an Indian car engineered from the ground up by Americans. The Mahindra Marazzo was created by Michiganders within an hour of the Car and Driver offices in Ann Arbor and made its debut at Detroit's Cobo Center-yet it will only be sold 8000 miles away.
The Marazzo is a diesel, manual-transmission, front-wheel drive minivan riding on a truck chassis. Put aside that dreamy list of features, and it looks and feels like it could be sold here. But this isn't some quirky export vehicle to geek over. The Marazzo marks a new generation of affordable cars from manufacturers that finally, in the year 2019, have begun to value human life in one of the world's largest, poorest countries.
By October, India will require all new cars on sale to pass three crash tests (frontal, frontal driver's-side offset, and side) under requirements set by the United Nations. While the government had previously mandated these tests for new cars introduced for sale by October 2017, the latest rule will force manufacturers either to refresh older models or remove them from the new-car market within months. Prior to 2017, India, in common with many other developing nations, never set any crash-test standards. But organizations like the Global New Car Assessment Program (Global NCAP) have persuaded domestic and foreign automakers in countries including India and China to develop safer cars for these markets.
The Marazzo is the first Mahindra on record to score four stars in the Global NCAP test, which uses the same standards for cars sold in the European Union. It's only the second Indian car to score this high, behind the five-star-rated Tata Nexon crossover.
"We're spitting distance from five stars," Mahindra's Rick Haas told Car and Driver in Detroit.
Haas is president of Mahindra Automotive North America, which has a team of 425 employees spread across the Detroit suburbs of Auburn Hills and Troy. After starting in business here six years ago, the company realized Mahindra had no hope of selling its Scorpio pickup here. Haas's office instead diverted to developing next-gen delivery vehicles for the U.S. Postal Service (the contract is still out for bid) and distributing the Roxor, an updated Willys Jeep that Mahindra has licensed since World War II, to powersports dealers.
The Marazzo is no more road legal in the U.S. than those other Mahindra products. But the panel gaps and fit are good. The interior is well dressed for the loaded show model's price, the equivalent of about $20,000. Base versions cost about $14,000. With its narrow stance and smaller footprint, It's almost like a lifted Mazda 5. Yet India hasn't seen a car quite like it before.
The Michigan engineers completed everything except the diesel four-cylinder, the six-speed manual transmission, and the styling collaboration between Mahindra's studio in Mumbai and Pininfarina, which is now wholly owned by Mahindra. There is a multilink front suspension with forged aluminum control arms and a torsion-beam rear axle. Haas said the company positioned the half-shafts directly below the shock towers to reduce torque steer; he claims the ladder frame carries a 176-pound weight penalty versus unibody construction (it weighs approximately 3600 pounds).
"Once you get past areas with civilized roads, under heavy-duty use, this vehicle is going to hold up better than a unitized vehicle," he said.
Even the tires have thicker, harder sidewalls to conquer rough terrain without the need for all-wheel drive. The Michigan office patented the Marazzo's rear air-conditioning system to conquer India's brutal summers, too. Haas likened the large overhead unit to the HVAC system on a train. Passengers in the second row can flip a switch to diffuse the air from all sides instead of just blowing it wildly in a few directions. Everything else, from validation testing to noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) testing, was signed off by the U.S. team.
"Frankly, it's a bit of a litmus test," Haas said. "Once we feel like there's acceptance for the product, then we'll talk about building other things."
India Has a Long Way to Go on Auto Modernization
And Mahindra should. Most every other economy car on sale in India scores zero stars on Global NCAP tests. In that country, the most rudimentary and cost-effective safety features such as airbags and seatbelt pretensioners are optional or missing entirely. Dual front airbags, ABS, and child-seat latches are standard on all Marazzo variants. Yet the chasm between India and established markets is still glaring when Mahindra advertises the "first-in-class disc brakes on all four wheels." The Marazzo doesn't have stability control or side and curtain airbags. However, whereas wreckage photos of the company's Scorpio SUV, tested by Global NCAP in 2016, suggest death or dismemberment at just 40 mph, the Marazzo stays in one piece.
Foreign automakers-Toyota, Nissan, Renault, Chevrolet, and Ford-are no better, because the regulations don't force them to be. Since modern safety regulations first emerged in the 1960s, mainstream automakers have made their priorities clear: Protecting people in poorer countries in an accident is far less important to them than making money. The tide is changing, and the torchbearer just happens to be a funky purple van.
('You Might Also Like',)
