New Scorpio N is the most advanced Mahindra Scorpio ever built: Mr Velumani explains

The Mahindra Scorpio-N is finally here, and as expected, the new version is a sea of improvement over the current-generation Scorpio, which has been rebranded as Scorpio Classic. But Mahindra hasn’t stopped here – it claims the new Scorpio-N to be better even than all the D-segment SUVs available in India. During the unveiling event of the new Mahindra Scorpio-N, R Velusamy, Head of automotive product development at Mahindra, gave us some insights into how the Scorpio-N is technically advanced over the D-segment SUVs.

Visibility

The new Mahindra Scorpio-N gets a visibility angle of 23 degrees, ground clearance of 182mm and a front seat height of 854mm. All of these come forward to give a commanding seating posture and a good view of the road ahead, in addition to excellent off-road drivability.

Also read: Mahindra Thar and Scorpio in a classic tug of war video

Best-in-class space

The new Mahindra Scorpio-N offers legroom of 1,047mm for the first-row seats, 935mm for the second-row seats and 834mm for the third-row seats. Mahindra claims that the third-row leg room is around 85mm more than the current segment benchmark, which makes it the most spacious third-row among all the D-segment SUVs. Even the shoulder room is claimed to be the best-in-class – 1,485mm for the first row, 1,470mm for the second row and 1,375mm for the third row.

Best-in-class body roll control

Mahindra claims that despite its ladder-on-frame construction, the new Scorpio-N has a lower centre of gravity of 706mm, which is even lower than the current crop of D-segment SUVs. It results in a roll arm height of 463mm, which is 8.3 per cent lower than the current benchmark of D-segment SUVs – 505mm. The result? The new Scorpio-N will have a significantly lesser body roll compared to other ladder-on-frame SUVs.

Light-weight

The new Mahindra Scorpio-N is based on a ladder-on-frame construction, with the body mounted on the frame. While the base frame is 10 per cent lighter at 213 kg, the body above is also 13 per cent lighter at 293 kg, thus giving the new Scorpio-N a better torsional stiffness and better local stiffness. While the new Scorpio-N is lighter, the overall body is stronger due to the use of 41 per cent high-strength steel, the highest among all the SUVs in its category. Even the frame below uses 81 per cent high-strength steel.

Revised suspension

Apart from the extensive changes done to the body and frame, the new Mahindra Scorpio-N also has a modern suspension setup – double wishbone at the front and Penta link with Watt’s linkage at the rear, both of which are segment firsts. The front suspension has a long travel of 225mm and has an unsprung mass 35 per cent lower than conventional setups.

Feather-light steering

The Mahindra Scorpio-N has received an electronically assisted dual-pinion steering, which is also a one-of-a-kind steering setup in its category. This setup gets a powerful 110A electric motor directly mounted on the steering rack, which makes the Scorpio-N an agile SUV to drive despite its high kerb weight.

4XPLOR four-wheel-drive system

The Mahindra Scorpio-N has become the only three-row SUV below the Rs 25 lakh mark to get a four-wheel-drive system as an option. Mahindra has named this system as ‘4XPLOR’, which gets mechanical locking rear differential and brake locking front differential. There are four terrain modes on offer too – normal, grass/gravel/snow, mud/rut and sand, and low-range mode.

Safety features

The new Mahindra Scorpio-N aims to take the safety quotient one notch above the current-generation Scorpio with its comparatively longer safety equipment list. The new Scorpio-N gets six airbags, driver drowsiness detection, tyre pressure monitoring system, dynamic stability control, vehicle dynamics control, traction control and roll-over mitigation. It also gets hill hold control, hill descent control, brake disc wiping, electronic brake prefill, front and rear parking sensors and cameras and trailer sway mitigation.

Features for tech-savvy people

The new Scorpio-N is one step above the utilitarian feel of the current-generation Scorpio, with its tech-laden features. The new SUV gets an 8-inch touchscreen infotainment system, which runs on Mahindra’s AdrenoX operating system and features Alexa compatibility with ‘what3words’ and wireless Apple Carplay and Android Auto. It also gets a 7-inch TFT MID in the instrument console, wireless charger, single-pane sunroof, 12-speaker 3D surround sound system from Sony, dual-zone automatic climate control, and 70+ connected car features and a powered driver’s seat.

Powertrain choices

The new Mahindra Scorpio-N retains the 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine and the 2.2-litre four-cylinder diesel engine from the Thar and XUV700. Though, in the Scorpio-N, both these engines are in multiple states of tune depending on the transmission and variant choices. Both these engines are offered with the choices of 6-speed manual and 6-speed torque converter.

The turbocharged petrol engine produces 203 PS of maximum power, with the peak torque outputs of 370 Nm for the manual version and 380 Nm for the automatic version. Coming to the diesel versions, the range-starting Z4 and Z6 diesel-manual variants claim 132 PS of power and 300 Nm of torque. The higher Z6, Z8 and Z8L variants get the same engine but claim 175 PS of power output. While the manual versions of these variants have a torque output of 370 Nm, the automatic versions of the same claim 400 Nm of torque output. The 175 PS diesel variants are also available with three drive modes – Zip, Zap and Zoom.

Also read: 10 DC Design cars & how they look in the REAL world: Maruti Swift to Mahindra XUV500