Cool Jeeps You Can't Have - Mahindra of India
- Thread starter jscherb
- Start date
jscherb
Expedition Leader
All of the photos in this thread are hosted on Photobucket. They've historically had issues but six months ago they rebuilt their site and they've been mostly trouble-free since then. Back when they were having problems, sometimes clearing your browser cache solved the problem, so that might be worth trying.
ihatemybike
Explorer
Have many pictures of Mahindra's Jeep FC style/based vans and buses?
billiebob
Well-known member
and .....
jscherb
Expedition Leader
I've got photos and a bunch of rare FC brochures, I'll get to them later in the thread.
jscherb
Expedition Leader
A couple of the above Commanders in rural taxi service; they're "buttoned up" for the night (literally). I took this photo along the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. The roofs of these Commanders are canvas; the racks on top carry spare tires, luggage and often passengers. The side panels are for nighttime when the vehicles are parked, in service these are removed and the vehicle is open.
If you're wondering what the pile of metal is in the foreground, they're "sleepers" (British english for railroad ties) for the 2-foot gauge railway. Most of the ties on this line are steel; there are a few wooden ones but they're mostly steel. The railway runs 130 year old locomotives from the plains of Bengal up to the hill town of Darjeeling.
For the railroad buffs, the locomotive in the photo above is one of these:
I did the drawing above as part of a magazine assignment I had to do an article on the railroad.
If you're wondering what the pile of metal is in the foreground, they're "sleepers" (British english for railroad ties) for the 2-foot gauge railway. Most of the ties on this line are steel; there are a few wooden ones but they're mostly steel. The railway runs 130 year old locomotives from the plains of Bengal up to the hill town of Darjeeling.
For the railroad buffs, the locomotive in the photo above is one of these:
I did the drawing above as part of a magazine assignment I had to do an article on the railroad.
pith helmet
Well-known member
I love this one, especially the headroom. The rear doors location is highly unusual. Wonder what the concept is there? Something to do with those jump seats I’d imagine.
jscherb
Expedition Leader
The styling on the side of the body may be misleading - the Commander pictured in the brochure is a 3-door - driver and passenger doors plus a rear barn door. The jump seats are accessed via the barn door in the back. The roof is high to provide headroom for the jump seats.
pith helmet
Well-known member
Ah, I see now. The gas cap on the rear looked like a handle for a passenger door behind the rear tire. Looked terribly impractical.
jscherb
Expedition Leader
I came across this Marshal in Kalimpong, West Bengal, in the foothills of the Himalayas. It's in tourist service:
On that trip we hired a driver with a Mahindra Bolero (a subsequent model to the Commander/Marshal). In India you can hire a car with a driver for roughly the same price as a self-drive rental car, so it really makes sense to let a driver worry about the roads and traffic. I was on a magazine article assignment on that trip, doing an article and photos about the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. With a driver we were able to take the train as we pleased and have the driver meet us where we wanted to get off.
I took this next photo of the traffic on the outskirts of Darjeeling. There's a Mahindra Bolero in the center of the photo (more on those later), and above and to the right of the Bolero is an older CJ4 in taxi service - it's got a soft top and a roof rack with a tire in it up top. The red vehicle is a Tata Sumo, made in India by Tata Motors, which is now the parent company of Jaguar/Land Rover. And at the back of the train is what looks like a blue MM540/550 (or could be an early soft top Commander).
BTW the Tata Sumo is only one of several other interesting SUV's made in India - the Force Gurkha resembles a Mercedes G-Wagen and the longer wheelbase Toofan model (Toofan is Urdu and means Typhoon) is popular in rural taxi service in Rajasthan and the Himalayan foothills, and there's also the Maruti Suzuki Gypsy, which is a long-wheelbase version of what we had here as the Suzuki Samurai. And the newly released Maruti Suzuki Jimny. All of those are off-topic for this thread, but maybe good material for a future thread.
Another Marshal: this one is (as it says) in the service of the government, I snapped this photo at Connaught Place in New Delhi, which is a commercial area built by the British Raj.
On that trip we hired a driver with a Mahindra Bolero (a subsequent model to the Commander/Marshal). In India you can hire a car with a driver for roughly the same price as a self-drive rental car, so it really makes sense to let a driver worry about the roads and traffic. I was on a magazine article assignment on that trip, doing an article and photos about the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. With a driver we were able to take the train as we pleased and have the driver meet us where we wanted to get off.
I took this next photo of the traffic on the outskirts of Darjeeling. There's a Mahindra Bolero in the center of the photo (more on those later), and above and to the right of the Bolero is an older CJ4 in taxi service - it's got a soft top and a roof rack with a tire in it up top. The red vehicle is a Tata Sumo, made in India by Tata Motors, which is now the parent company of Jaguar/Land Rover. And at the back of the train is what looks like a blue MM540/550 (or could be an early soft top Commander).
BTW the Tata Sumo is only one of several other interesting SUV's made in India - the Force Gurkha resembles a Mercedes G-Wagen and the longer wheelbase Toofan model (Toofan is Urdu and means Typhoon) is popular in rural taxi service in Rajasthan and the Himalayan foothills, and there's also the Maruti Suzuki Gypsy, which is a long-wheelbase version of what we had here as the Suzuki Samurai. And the newly released Maruti Suzuki Jimny. All of those are off-topic for this thread, but maybe good material for a future thread.
Another Marshal: this one is (as it says) in the service of the government, I snapped this photo at Connaught Place in New Delhi, which is a commercial area built by the British Raj.
jscherb
Expedition Leader
This is a nice Marshal I spotted some years ago when we were looking for tigers in the Corbett Tiger Reserve:
We spent one day in the jungle in an open truck (a Toyota if I recall correctly); didn't see any tigers that day but did see a herd of wild elephants.
The next day we went into the jungle on an elephant (a tame one) and the only animals we saw that day were monkeys, which are everywhere in India.
We spent one day in the jungle in an open truck (a Toyota if I recall correctly); didn't see any tigers that day but did see a herd of wild elephants.
The next day we went into the jungle on an elephant (a tame one) and the only animals we saw that day were monkeys, which are everywhere in India.
