Sturdy, tough, macho, speedy, stable and which literally rules the road… yes, I am talking about nonetheless but our Scorpio VXI, m-Hawk. This is ‘one machine’ which builds the confidence of the driver to just fleet on the road, with almost everyone yielding their way for you J
The best thing about Scorpio in comparison to any other SUV in its segment is its look & value for money and the feeling of one’s own as its coming from an Indian company. The features(such as a tyre-pressure monitoring system, rain sensing- wipers, auto head-light, parking sensor, etc.) included in this variant is something which is missing in most of the cars of this segment.
Being a person who craves for performance, speed, comfort and loves to travel…with an additional member in the family I thought it’s the right time to shift from a car to SUV. I usually travel along with my wife and dog. Now with the kid at home we thought the space would be insufficient in the car to travel long distance with baggage and stroller… Scorpio gives ample space for all this and enough room to breathe- consider it as a mini camp by itself. It’s only the interior color and fabric which is not upto the mark. Hawk feels invincible on road and therefore, safest to drive.
Some of the Scorpio MHawk owners would be aware of the fact that the heart of MHawk is a 2.2 litre Common rail engine, AVL unit prepared from Austria. This unit is also found in the TATA’s Safari 2.2 VTVT Dicor. But the sad part is that Safari is tuned to produce 140 bhp whereas Mahindra’s are happy with 120 bhp peak power. Though Scorpio is more agile and swift than Safari(which is like a bungalow with gargantuan weight); my thirst for a more powerful engine was ever in my mind.
I started googling and found out that many Innova owner’s have fitted ‘Pete’s Tuning Box ‘ and upped the power of their car to 125 bhp. The acceleration between 0-100 was improved to 12.35 seconds. I wanted to add a similar one for my mean machine.
It’s the review by a fellow mouthshut member – Arvind, who has fitted a Dragon Performance kit, purchased from USA into his Vista, triggered the idea in my mind to buy similar kit for my mHawk. That kit was much cheaper and I was able to fit it in just about 10 minutes, all by myself.
Fitting this ’kit’has enhanced my beast’s peak power to a heart pumping 150bhp and 33.5 kgm torque across a wide rpm band. This translates to an unbelievable acceleration over 1400 rpm onwards, whatever gear I may be in, for example: at 60 kmph in 4th gear I shift it to 5th and then floor the accelerator, the pulling is like it would be in 3rd gear. MHawk pulls and pulls reaching the company claimed top speed of 156kmph easily and further pulls up to 4500 rpm, ie. 175 Kmph.
The torque pull sometimes over-steers the front wheels thereby does wheel spin. This wheel spin sometimes even happens in 2nd & 3 gear also. Sever’Roller coaster’ like torque pull from 1500 rpm right upto 4500 creates a’tug’ of lunge in my stomach. In highways, a polite honk would do, all Sonatas, Skodas, Innovas & Corollas would give way, and I would with racing effortlessly over 140 Kmph.
This is the true way a scorpio should be on road. Having such a ‘Macho’ and ‘daunting’ looks, if it doesn’t have a power to overtake saloons like City or Corolla, it would be just a vaunting for Mahindra’s to say ‘sack your car’ in their commercials.Having had driven Swift Vdi, which is known for its acceleration, for the past three years… I feel Scorpio to be a definite upgrade both in terms of performance and handling for its dimension. I have upgraded my vehicle with a Dragon tuning box and this has further enhanced both pick-up and top-speed. I am hardly able to see any 4-wheeler overtaking me….Man, makes me feel like god! Someone’s rightly said that performance has no limits or boundaries…one always want more and craves for it. It’s a complete car. Happy & safe driving!
*Updated May 12th:
* More information on dragon performance kit can be obtained from the below reviews.
https://mouthshut.com/review/Maruti_Suzuki_Swift_VDi-142251-1.html
https://mouthshut.com/review/Maruti_Suzuki_Swift_Dzire-166471-1.html
Last sunday, I went on a long drive, upto Vijayawada(460 Kms, from chennai). The fuel efficiency was 16.5 Kmpl, with two persons in car and 50% AC and super sonic speedy driving.
What was more impressive was the devastating performance. The beast is effortlessly pulling till the red line in every gear. I managed to touch 180 Kmph in 5th gear with rpm indicating’4500’. I had guts to speed up further, but ran out of free road.
A chevrolet captiva with a 140 bhp engine and lighter body, was seriously trying to overtake me. I literally mocked him at speeds over 150 kmph whereas he was trying hard to come close to me but in vain.