After the Tata Hexa, the Mahindra XUV500 launches an attack on the Jeep Compass

After Tata Motors, the other homegrown manufacturer is showing animosity to the Jeep Compass. Below is Mahindra with an advertisement for the XUV500 in its rally avatar. The Jeep Compass' aggressive pricing has its rivals feeling the heat quite clearly.

The ad features a rally-spec Mahindra XUV500 accompanied by the phrase - "You don't need a compass to win races. You need guts." It highlights the XUV500's accomplishments off the road including its first and third place podium finishes at the Rally of Coimbatore that took place in July. Earlier this month, Tata took out an advert for the Hexa with the tagline - "Takes you anywhere. No compass required."

Launched at a starting price of INR 15.45 lakhs (ex-showroom Delhi) for the diesel variant, the Compass is more expensive than the Mahindra XUV500 by circa INR 3 lakhs. However, the premium brand image of Jeep will no doubt tempt customers of the XUV500, Hexa and the Tucson.

When compared spec for spec, the XUV500 emerges as the better package. It offers considerably more kit. Specifically, it gets three rows of seats as opposed to the Compass' two-row format. Also, Mahindra offers the XUV500 in diesel automatic variants, unlike the manual-only Compass diesel.

A facelift of the XUV500 is currently in the works and will arrive before the end of 2017, M&M has confirmed. It will be armed with an updated exterior and interior and, more crucially, a bump in power output to around 170 hp bringing it at par with the Jeep Compass whose 2.0 L diesel churns out 173 PS and 350 Nm.