Updated on 17th May 2014
Wait, what? If that’s your reaction after reading the headline, we understand. The Force Gurkha ‘4x4x4’ was launched in the Indian market in February 2013 (read the update below) but not a single unit of the SUV has been sold till date. There were two reasons for this; One was the fact that the engine on the Gurkha was not BS-IV ready, which in turn meant that this expensive vehicle was not available to many who would consider buying it. Secondly the engineers found out some technical problems, some relating to the NVH levels, on the SUV just after launch, which made the company postpone the sales.
Now it has emerged that the company is getting ready to start retail sales of the SUV, as dealerships have started contacting potential customers. The big news though is that the Gurkha may be launched with a BS-IV variant of the 2.6-litre, Mercedes-sourced turbocharged diesel engine. The Gurkha is a capable off-roader, and the the price tag it carries makes it imperative that the company launches it in BS-IV markets.
What do you think of the Force Gurkha? Is the launch too less, too late? Let us know in the comments section below.
Updated on 18th February 2013
There are on-road machines and there are off-road machines. Ever heard of extreme off-roaders? No you would not have as there has not been a single Extreme off roader been launched in the world till date. We are the country which gave the world the 0 and today we bring out the world’s first ever Extreme Off-Roader in the form of the iconic Force Gurkha. The car has been seen doing the test rounds in India for quite a while now and today we get to see the real deal.
The Force Gurkha has just been launched in the country and it comes in both 2 wheel as well as 4 wheel drive guises. The car gets soft top and hard top variants with the hard top variant getting the 4 wheel drive as standard and the soft top variant gives you an option to choose from the 2 wheel and 4 wheel guises. The car would suffer big time when it would come to compliance with BS4 cities as it would come only in BS3 variants as of now with the BS4 compliant versions to follow later on.
All the prices are ex-showroom Delhi and the car will be on sale at the time you are reading this article. The Force Gurkha is based on the G-Wagon of Mercedes Benz and that car costs over a crore in India. The Gurkha gets a 2.6 litre diesel motor which would churn out 82PS in terms of power and a maximum torque of 230NM which seem to be nice figures for a off-roader. The engine is mated to a 5-speed manual transmission. The SUV has a high mounted snorkel intake which even though seems a bit odd, but still makes you notice the car once more.
The Gurkha variants are priced as below:
- Gurkha 4X2 – Rs 6.25 lakhs (soft top)
- Gurkha 4X4 – Rs 8.35 lakhs (soft top)
- Gurkha 4X4 – Rs 8.50 lakhs (hard top)
A ground clearance of 210mm ensures that you never scrape the underside of your car when you decide to take the road less-travelled. It’s arch rival, Mahindra Thar is BS4 compliant and when the BS4 Gurkha comes in, it shall give the Thar a hard time in bigger cities as well. Force Motors will sell the car through its dealerships that have been setup to sell the Force One. And it just hit us right now, the Gurkha will soon be joined in by the Force One’s entry and top-end variants as well in near future so those dealers who were disheartened by the poor sales performance of Force One, would not be sitting idle for too long.
Check out more new launches in Indian car market here.
