Mahindra Bolero Camper - Body Builder

India’s very own muscle car is here. No muscle under the hood. All muscle on the driver’s biceps. Yoga recommended to aid recovery from sudden muscle exertion.

Story: Jayesh Jagasia Photography: Kunal Khadse

It has been more than a week of driving the Mahindra Bolero Camper over a variety of terrain and squeezing it through an eclectic mix of traffic conditions. Mind you, by ‘squeezing’, I actually mean ‘squeezing’, for want of a better adjective. Parking (or is that ‘packing’) the Camper into tight parking slots at stylish urban malls, or making seven-point turns (nine, sometimes) to get it out of our editorial office parking lot, at the same time ensuring that neither the Camper, nor the office building has any scars to show is difficult work indeed. Mammoth size, massive turning radius, five and a half turns lock-to-lock, and hold your breath...no power steering. I somehow get the feeling that destiny is conspiring against me to make sure that I end up with 17-inch biceps by the time this road test is ready for print. So much for many years of dodging them dumbbells at the local gym!

My search for timeless answers to take care of my creaking, aching muscles took me down the fascinating journey of Indian mysticism. Oh never mind actually, a colleague happened to recommend Yoga to ease the pain. It so turned out that Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and the Bolero Camper had much in common. At a spiritual level of course!

“Yoga entails mastery over the body, mind, and emotional self, and transcendence of desire.”

The Bolero Camper’s body is vast and its size is nothing short of gargantuan. Negotiating streets without incidents requires a generous dose of providence, immense good luck, and well...mastery over the body. Concentration levels at every point of time must remain at their absolute peak lest one crushes pesky cyclists while gazing at the pretty young thing passing by on her chic scooterette. ‘Mastery over the mind’, did we say?

It is an errant autorickshaw’s birthright to cut across three lanes and turn right without any signal (you didn’t notice the driver stick his right foot out, did you?). The Camper’s intimidating size and seeming impregnability might lead you to believe, in a fit of fiery rage, that you can crush the autorickshaw and go home to find a Nobel prize waiting for you (for committing a noble deed). Yoga will teach you peace, and the ‘transcendence of desire’; the desire to crush smaller beings. Umm...even the desire to go faster.

The Camper is propelled by a 2523cc turbocharged direct injection diesel that unleashes 63 horses on to the tarmac. ‘Unleashes’ is pushing the envelope just that little bit, but nevertheless. Also on tap is 176Nm of torque available throughout the rev-band and that proves to be an invaluable companion while negotiating narrow city streets. The Camper is quite driveable in the city – its DI engine nippy enough to take care of stop-go traffic conditions. But that is just about it. The dash to 100km/h will come up in 33.81 seconds – I’d like a cappuccino meanwhile. Surprisingly, even though that figure looks excruciatingly slow on paper, it is not half as painful when actually lugging the car to 100km/h. Those thirty-odd seconds go by in a hurry, and not once through that time interval will you need to stifle a bored yawn. Much on the same lines, it is also amazing fun to drive around. Discount the obscene amount of effort needed to steer it from standstill, and it is a pretty good vehicle to pilot. Gearshifts are smooth, and require very little effort, while the ratios are spot-on. No wonder then, that on our off-road expeditions, all of us had wicked grins plastered to our faces as we tried repeatedly (with some degree of success) to stir up enough horses to turn the rear wheels and send them sliding.

Source: Car India February 2006.