SUVs have become the trend of the recent times as far as Indian automobile sector is concerned. Though there were full-fledged, burly looking SUVs in India for a long time, they were considered as commercial vehicles not fit to be family cars. However, with the introduction of certain cars like Scorpio and Bolero, the SUV sector found a wider acceptance in India. However, as these cars were also muscular and big, many found their very appearance a bit intimidating and did not choose to buy them. Then came the mini SUVs or compact SUVs, which was an SUV for all practical purposes, minus the huge size.
One of the first compact SUVs to hit the Indian roads was the Mahindra Quanto. This is a car modeled after the highly successful SUV, Mahindra Xylo. In fact, the Quanto is mini Xylo, as Mahindra simply chipped off the rear of Xylo to make the Quanto. By this exercise, not only did they create a new car, bit also ensured that since the car comes under the sub four-meter category, it gets all the excise duty cuts offered to the small vehicles. In addition, this small change in the design and size of the car has brought down the production cost drastically. Because of these, Mahindra is able to sell the Quanto at lower rates than its rivals.
Mahindra Quanto is priced at INR 6.10 lakh to 7.87 lakh. The advantages of owning this car is that it offers high sitting position, spacious cabin, powerful engine and good ground clearance. It is an affordable seven seater, which comes with reasonable storage spaces too. For a person aspiring to buy an SUV, but could not afford to buy one, cars like the Quanto could be a highly attractive option.
However, there are some setbacks in buying these cars – the Quanto is very congested in the third row, as the rear had to be cut to keep the car under the four –meter mark. In addition, the Quanto is a comparatively cheap car and hence the cost cutting is evidently visible in the low quality interiors. The driving dynamics too is not all that great when compared to the other Mahindra siblings.
Having said that the Quanto offers a reasonable performance by means of its 1.5-litre, three-cylinder, 1493 cc diesel engine, which is capable of churning a maximum power of 98.6bhp and a peak torque of 240Nm. The Quanto features the same engine as Xylo and this power mill is coupled with a five-speed manual transmission gearbox, enabling the car to return a mileage of 17.21 kmpl on the highways.
The greatest competitors of Quanto are other utility cars like Maruti Suzuki Ertiga, Chevrolet Enjoy and the Premier Rio.
