Tata Harrier looks smaller than Mahindra Thar? Nope!

The Tata Harrier has great street presence, but there’s a rider to this. The Harrier’s street presence is great next to compact SUVs such as the Tata Nexon, Ford EcoSport, Hyundai Creta and even the Jeep Compass. But how does it compare to the rough road King of India and everyone’s favourite off-roader, the Mahindra Thar, when standing side by side?

We came across this photo that does that. And the Harrier looks smaller.

Image courtesy BlackPearl/Team-BHP

In the photo, it looks like the Mahindra Thar is much bigger and imposing than the Harrier. But this is not the case. The Mahindra Thar appears so much bigger in the photo just because of the wide angle lens. The Thar looks like it is standing 1-2 feet in front of the Harrier. The camera is also closer to the Thar, making it look bigger.

But imposing? Well, that is a matter of opinion. Many may find the old-school looks of the Thar much more imposing than the sleeker looks of the Tata Harrier. The Thar is 20 cm taller than the Harrier – so that makes it look more imposing in our opinion. But the length and width of the Harrier is clearly much larger than that of the Thar. So it is just a trick of the lens – the only exception is in the height.

Full-sized SUVs such as the Toyota Fortuner, Mahindra Scorpio and the Tata Safari Storme will also make the Harrier look quite small in comparison, and there’s only so much the design can do for the Harrier. At the end, it boils down to dimensions, and vehicles such as the Scorpio, Thar, Safari Storme and even the Fortuner have not only the height to but also sheer width and bulk to overshadow the Harrier.

However, the Harrier’s fresh design means that the SUV will still be noticed even when it stands next to a much a larger SUV such as say the Mahindra Scorpio or the Toyota Fortuner. This advantage will stay with the Tata Harrier at least for up to a year because the novelty value for any new vehicle lasts for about this period, after which it becomes rather too common on the road, especially if it’s a hot seller.

Talking sales, the Tata Harrier has a sedate first month. In January 2019, Tata Motors dispatched about 1,500 units of the Harrier to dealer stockyards across India. In the coming months though, we expect the Harrier to sell about 2,500-3,000 monthly units on an average. The SUV is expected to outsell both the Mahindra XUV500 and Jeep Compass. However, the Hyundai Creta is likely to be more or less unaffected, with only a small proportion of sales reducing because of the Harrier.

Prices of the Tata Harrier start from 12.69 lakhs, ex-showroom, for the entry level XE trim and go all the way up to Rs. 16.25 lakhs for the top-end XZ trim. The SUV is offered with a single diesel engine-manual gearbox configuration. It’s powered by a 2 liter turbocharged diesel engine that outputs 140 Bhp and 350 Nm.

The gearbox is a 6 speed manual unit. By the end of this year, Tata Motors will offer a 6 speed torque converter automatic gearbox on the SUV. The gearbox will be sourced from Hyundai, and is expected to be similar to the unit that does duty on the Creta Diesel Automatic.

Tata Motors is also said to be working on turbo petrol and petrol-hybrid variants of the Harrier. However, these variants won’t make it to the market anytime before April 2020. So, for now it’s only the diesel-manual and the upcoming diesel-automatic variants that buyers need to consider for a purchase this year.

By the end of this year, the Harrier will be joined by a 7 seat, larger and more powerful sibling code-named the H7X. The H7X will offer 3 rows of seating, will feature different styling and will get the same 2 liter diesel engine in a more powerful state of tune. It’ll also be at least a lakh costlier than the Harrier.