Under the “Safer Cars For India” campaign, Global NCAP has conducted numerous crash tests on vehicles sold in India. Now that Bharat NCAP has commenced operations, Global NCAP still has a few vehicles to test. As per our sources, the latest of these crash tests were done on a Mahindra Bolero and the result will be out this week.
Global NCAP is an independent new car assessment program that strives to reveal crashworthiness of a vehicle sold in developing markets like India and Africa. This program has revealed crash performance of many vehicles across multiple segments from many OEMs and has significant contributions towards vehicular buying decisions.
Global NCAP has a few crash tests remaining and one of those includes Mahindra Bolero. As per our sources, crash tests on Mahindra Bolero by Global NCAP have been completed and the result should be out sometime this week.
Our source further revealed that Mahindra Bolero scored a very poor safety rating. As of writing this article, we are not sure what “very poor” translates to on a scale of 0 stars to 5 stars in Global NCAP’s standard result structure. Precise details will be revealed in Global NCAP’s results.
Mahindra Bolero is likely to get a low safety rating and it is not necessarily for poorly designed crumple zones or unsafe vehicular structures. However, it is primarily because of Global NCAP’s policy of offering seat belts in the third row. Bolero has side-facing jump seats in the 3rd row without headrests and seatbelts.
Mahindra today is a shiny beacon of crash-worthy vehicle portfolio with Marazzo, Thar, Scorpio N, XUV300 and XUV700 achieving 4 Stars and above in Global NCAP tests. However, the company’s older Scorpio (now sold as Scorpio Classic) has demonstrated 0 Stars and the vehicle structure was declared unstable by Global NCAP.
It would be interesting to see how Bolero would perform in Global NCAP crash tests. The car has metallic bumpers too and it would fare poorly in pedestrian safety tests. Bolero is likely to be subjected to both front and side impact tests for crashworthiness analysis along with other tests like child occupant and pedestrian safety test procedures as per Global NCAP’s latest protocols.
Bolero is a ladder-frame-chassis-based rugged SUV that is very popular with semi-urban and rural audiences. Currently it is powered by a sole 1.5L 3-cylinder engine that generates 75 bhp and 210 Nm. The sole gearbox option is a 5-speed manual box and is offered in a sole RWD layout.
Also read – Mahindra launched Bolero Neo Plus in India. Global NCAP recently awarded Citroen eC3 0 Stars