Mahindra XUV Aero, The Grandfather of the XEV 9e!

Year 2016. Mahindra was tasting success with the XUV 500. The SUV with its Cheetah-inspired styling was selling well in India. At the Auto Expo that year, Mahindra showcased an extremely radical concept based on the XUV 500. Dubbed the ‘XUV Aero’, it was a coupe SUV based on the 500. Fast forward to 2024 and we realise that it was the XEV 9e’s grandpa!

The XUV Aero was a coupe concept that borrows heavily from the XUV 500 in terms of design. It was in fact, part of a design study by Mahindra. The Auto Expo debut and the responses it would get from the public there, would give the carmaker data to plan the design of its future models. People soon green-flagged the design. It got massive attention and got people vocal.

The most important design aspect of AERO was the sloping roof line. It gave the car proper coupe proportions. The concept had a single door on the driver’s side. The other side had suicide doors, like you’d see on a Rolls-Royce.

The front fascia will remind you of the XUV 500 and its design. Key deviations were reworked front bumper, tweaked LED DRLs, and improved grille design.

In addition to the sloping roofline, the side profile also had good-looking wheels, a rising belt line, Cheetah-inspired body lines and XUV 500-like door handles. At the rear, the key attraction was the tail lamps, which resembled those on the Ford Mustang with the LED detailing.

The interior was finished in similar colours as the exterior. The show car had an Orange and Black layout. Notable bits were premium leather upholstery and a vertically aligned large touchscreen infotainment system. Being a show car, there was no word on powertrain specs. Sources say that it had Mahindra’s 2.2L diesel engine under the hood.

The Aero concept was designed at Mahindra’s Design Studio in Mumbai ( which is now called Mahindra India Design Studio- MIDS) with inputs from Pininfarina Design House- also owned by Mahindra.

In 2024, we have heard many cite Tata Motors as the first to try the Coupe SUV format and Mahindra to have copied the trend from them with the BEVs. While Tata is definitely the first to put a coupe SUV into the market, it is Mahindra who had started working on it first, and who had probably thought of democratizing the coupe format first.

Back in 2016, coupes were unheard of in the mainstream segments. The eye-candy format was limited to just the luxury and high-end cars and SUVs. Back then we had the BMW X6 and GLE coupe as the two popular buys. It was rare for any mass-market manufacturer to try out the format.

The Aero got huge thumbs-ups at the Expo and rumours soon said that it would be put into production soon, and could be called XUV 900 upon launch. These, however, stayed rumours and the XUV-500-based coupe never made it to production. The body style was later adapted for use on the XEV 9e- the electric coupe based on the XUV 700.

Visual Similarities With The XEV 9e Are Minimal

Mahindra seems to have taken note of just the key takeaways from the AERO design study, and used the same in designing the 9e. While the AERO was loudly based on the XUV 500, the 9e is vocal about being based on the XUV 700. The coupe body style and a few other cues have made it to the 9e. Thus drawing a direct comparison between the two wouldn’t be the wisest of ideas. The 9e should be seen as a mature evolution of the XUV 700 based on the findings from the AERO concept study.