[Urorobo]

Originally Posted by GTO

Amit Rao shares his condolences:

I will follow this. I remember reading his detailed drawings of the Mahindra Jeeps.

All Thar lovers must read his posts.

His son had written he would have ordered a Red CT and put Hella lamps on the bumper.

Had I read that post before ordering my Thar I would have ordered a Red CT. GTO has the exact same choice for his car.

Would Try and keep my car as stock as possible and keep my engine bay surgically clean . RIP, Sir

Thank you GTO for sharing the letters and stories. You are one Team BHP member whose posts I pay alot of attention to . Have been an avid TBHP reader for at more than 10 years now .

[arun1100]

Time flies. 7 years since that fateful day. Even to this day, there are the Jeep and Fiat enthusiasts who truly miss him.

In April 2017, the last time I met Behram Sir at Taj, Bangalore, he spoke of his personal retirement plans and the restoration projects. Now I see Cyrus is trying to achieve them on behalf of his late father.

Miss you, Sir.

[DesertKing]

Definitely Thar is the brain child of Mr. Dhabhar and it would be great to know more about the journey of starting this project.

I give the credit of this legendary, historical जीप Thar's success to him. RESPECT

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by DesertKing

Definitely Thar is the brain child of Mr. Dhabhar and it would be great to know more about the journey of starting this project.

The project started internally in Mahindra, but it didn't have any management support. So Behram started the following thread to get feedback from the enthusiast community. At that time there was only one place, TeamBHP offroad section.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/4x4-v...mm540-4wd.html (MM540-4WD wish list - what you really want in your MM540-4WD?)

[DKG]

A story that needs to be told.

When Behram was developing the Thar internally there were no formal plans to launch in India. I think given his persistence he was allowed to do a parts bin approach.

When the final iteration was created Behram wanted feedback from enthusiasts around the country. We used to meet regularly at offroad events and talked a lot over the phone.

He wanted me and another enthusiast to test the Thar so sent a test vehicle all the way to Hyderabad. I took it offroad and loved it. Gave feedback to Behram and in the following time he carried out various reliability tests before signing off.

One day he called in complete frustration that no.one in Mahindra was willing to take up the challenge of releasing the Thar as a regular sales offering. I think senior mgt wasn't sure it would be a hit. Behram was almost ready to quit Mahindra over the disappointment. Out of sheer regard and respect for the man I asked him to forward Anand Mahindra's email.

I wrote to Anand explaining how at the core of Mahindra values is the legacy of the Jeep they built and that the Thar symbolises those values to the T. Anand immediately responded to my email wholeheartedly agreeing to what I said. In the emails that ensued between us he marked senior mgt in this topic. He even asked me, eventually, after they took a decision to release the Thar for the Indian mkt to write out a tweet to share on his twitter, which I did. Anand also asked me to come see him to join Mahindra. With aging parents I couldn't take up his offer as it meant shifting to Bombay.

Behram was elated when senior mgt cleared release of the Thar. He and his team are entirely responsible for the Thar and the Indian offroad community owes Behram for this great product.

When Behram passed away I wrote to Anand again suggesting an iteration of Thar be released with the BD tag in its nomenclature. He liked the idea...don't think they actually did it.

I have all the emails to support this story of how the Thar got released in India and Behram's amazing legacy saw the light of production.

I bought a Thar from the first lot shipped to Hyderabad and loved it in the years I had it.

I miss him.

[Chisels121]

Just a thought that if Tata can name the Sumo[Sumant Moolgaokar] after their employee then why can't Mahindra launch a BD edition of the Thar it seems funny that the same management that didn't approve the Thar in the beginning now sings praises about it.