At first glance, both vehicles look familiar. Both carry the Thar badge, both turn heads, and at first glance they look like close relatives. But spend some time with each and it becomes pretty clear they’re built for different kinds of people, even if neither Mahindra nor the buyers themselves always frame it that way upfront.
Here’s what actually separates them in the real world.
The Most Common Difference: Two Doors vs Five
This is where it starts. The regular Thar is a two-door SUV, it is compact, deliberate, and unapologetically impractical in certain situations. Getting into the rear seats requires some effort, and rear passengers don’t exactly have the most comfortable experience on longer drives.
The Thar Roxx is five-door. That single change cascades into everything else with more usable rear space, easier entry and exit, a cabin that actually works for four or five adults without someone having to fold themselves in. It’s a bigger vehicle in every dimension, and you feel that from the moment you open the door.
If you have a family or regularly carry more than two people, this difference alone usually settles the debate.
How the Regular Thar Actually Feels to Drive
The standard Thar has a very specific character and it doesn’t try to hide it. It feels mechanical, slightly firm, and deliberately raw in a way that a lot of enthusiasts genuinely enjoy. On rough roads, on trails, on long highway stretches, it reminds you constantly that it was built with toughness as the priority, not comfort.
Some people love exactly that. There’s something satisfying about a vehicle that doesn’t pretend to be something it isn’t. The steering feel, the ride quality, the way it sits on the road, all of it leans towards the driver who wants engagement over ease.
The flip side is that daily city driving in the Thar can get tiring. Stop-and-go traffic, narrow parking spots, stiff suspension on bad roads, it’s manageable, but it’s not effortless.
How the Thar Roxx Feels Different
The Roxx is still unmistakably a Thar. Same road presence, same commanding seating position, same visual aggression but the edges are smoother in day-to-day use.
The cabin feels more modern with larger touchscreen, better material quality in higher variants, noticeably more rear legroom. Ride comfort is improved enough that you don’t spend every commute thinking about it. It’s still an SUV built for presence and capability, just one that’s also been designed to be genuinely liveable on a Monday morning.
For buyers who want the Thar experience without giving up too much in everyday practicality, the Roxx is the obvious answer. The question is whether that trade-off is worth the price difference and for most family buyers, it usually is.
The Price Gap
The regular Thar starts at around ₹9.99 lakh ex-showroom. The Thar Roxx starts at around ₹12.99 lakh. That’s a ₹3 lakh gap at the base level, and it widens as you move up the variants.
If budget is tight, the regular Thar offers a lot of Thar DNA at a lower entry point. If you’re already stretching to mid or higher variants of either, the Roxx starts making a stronger case because the features-to-price ratio improves considerably as you move up.
This is one area where neither version disappoints. Both sit high, both get attention, both have the kind of presence on the road that’s hard to replicate in any other car at this price. Whether it’s the two-door compact aggression of the regular Thar or the more planted, larger stance of the Roxx, people notice both.
If you’re buying a Thar partly for how it looks and feels on the road, you won’t be let down by either.
Who Usually Ends Up With the Regular Thar
Typically it’s buyers who genuinely enjoy a more involved driving experience, people who off-road occasionally, who like the compact two-door character, and who don’t need the rear seats to be comfortable for long stretches.
A lot of younger buyers and off-road enthusiasts fall into this camp. The rawness is a feature for them, not a compromise.
Who Leans Towards the Thar Roxx
Buyers with families, or those who plan to use the SUV as a primary daily driver rather than a weekend vehicle. Also buyers who want the Thar identity but spend most of their time in the city, the Roxx handles that environment more comfortably without losing the character that made the Thar worth buying in the first place.
Why You Really Need to Drive Both
This is one of those comparisons where reading about it only takes you so far. The difference in how both vehicles feel isn’t dramatic on paper but it’s noticeable the moment you’re behind the wheel, especially on longer drives or in city traffic.
At Param Wheels, a Mahindra dealer in Ahmedabad, this is one of the most common comparisons buyers come in asking about. And most of the time, the decision doesn’t get made by looking at spec sheets. It gets made after a test drive, when one of them just feels more right for how that person actually lives.
The Final Call
The regular Thar and the Thar Roxx aren’t really competing with each other. They’re two versions of the same idea aimed at different buyers. The regular Thar is the purist’s pick since it’s raw, compact, and characterful. The Roxx is for someone who wants all of that with more room and less friction in everyday life.
Neither is objectively better. If you’re still deciding, the most useful thing you can do is visit a Mahindra showroom in Ahmedabad, sit in both, and take at least one of them for a proper drive. That’ll answer the question faster than any comparison article.