The debate started on September 1 when Rattan Dhillon, an auto-enthusiast by profession, posted on X asking why Mahindra, which supports the ‘Make in India’ campaign, uses BMW and Mercedes cars instead of Mahindra Thar which is manufactured by his company.
Dhillon’s post received a lot of attention and was viewed more than 337k times with almost a thousand comments. However, the claim was quickly dismissed by Hormazd Sorabjee, the Editor of Autocar India who has been following Mahindra since the chairman joined the firm. Sorabjee explained that Mahindra has been using only his brand for more than 30 years and has never owned any other car.
But Anand Mahindra himself came forward to explain the allegations in a very emotional and detailed manner. In his post on X, Mahindra has shared his experience with the Mahindra vehicles from his childhood days when his mother, a light sky-blue Premier, taught him to drive her car which she fondly called ‘BlueBird. ‘ Later on, he used a soft-top Mahindra CJ3 UV from their family home in Kodagu.
Anand Mahindra got a Hindustan Motors Contessa when he joined Mahindra & Mahindra in 1991, but soon shifted to the hard-top Armada as soon as it was possible. He has been using different models of Mahindra cars such as Bolero, Scorpio classic, XUV 500, and now he owns a red Scorpio N. Sometimes he uses his wife’s silver XUV 700.
Anand Mahindra further added, “Since the Armada, I have NEVER owned or used any car of another brand, It is a matter of enormous pride & joy for me to use a car built by our own company.”
The chairman also responded to one image that Dhillon posted where he was seen sitting in front of a foreign car. To be specific, Mahindra stated that the photo was taken at Monterey Car Week during the unveiling of Mahindra’s Battista electric hypercar. The car behind him in the picture was a Cisitalia, a vintage car which was designed by Pininfarina company, which belongs to Mahindra.
The response from Mahindra was well received by many people, especially those who appreciated his loyalty to his brand.
