Coming from a Tata Safari Dicor, the Gurkha’s short wheelbase is a delight to handle & very easy to manoeuvre.
BHPian vigneshkumar31 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
A tall, intimidating truck that is the farthest cry from a family car. Poorly appointed interiors with rough edges vaguely reminiscent of times gone by and plastic quality that is at par only with its commercial cousin. A 2.6-litre diesel villain of a motor that manages to cough up a mere 90 horses, when Cute-Utes and high heeled hatches boast of greater figures from tinier motors. No electronic dials, no automatic transmission, no petrol and the cardinal sin – no sunroof! The Gurkha has no business to be on sale in 2021-22, in a market that’s dizzy for tech-laden transportation.
And yet it exists.
And boy am I glad it does.
My Force Gurkha BSVI FM2.6CR 4×4 SWB is the first and the only one yet, in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. And this is our story. (Grab your popcorn, we’ll be here a while.)
Likes
- Purpose-built, Abuse friendly off-roader.
- 4×4, Low range, with manual locking diffs.
- True Stadium Seating
- Practical Layout with Luggage Space
- Good Ride Quality for a ladder frame off-road truck
- Excellent Pre-sales service and Customer Satisfaction Initiative
- Short Wheel Base – Sweet spot of size and footprint
- All Metal body, metal roof +Roof Carrier.
Dislikes
- Sparse Dealerships and Service Network
- Low-quality interior trim.
- Back seats don’t fold flat.
- The front seat armrest missing.
- Poor finishing quality is evident in many places.
- Aftermarket TPMS and ICE look poorly integrated.
- Silly short inter-service intervals.
- After-sales service, spare parts availability and warranty redressal worries.
Gurkha-The Master of One.
As a market, we are all collectively and sinfully guilty of demanding carmakers to roll out ‘jack of all trade’ cars. We want the cars that we buy, to do everything every time. And that has pushed the market into a hotch-potch ‘do-it-all’ portfolio where sharply contrasted purposes of these cars have often been smeared and smudged into a blurry grey zone. There’s nothing wrong in it- I’m not ‘holier than thou’, we’ve all done it at some point, the market wants what it wants. And the vast majority of car buyers still demand and want it ‘all in one’: feature-rich, tech-laden, mileage friendly, spacious car that should strain and stand on stilts and call itself an SUV. The market has exploded with CSUV options that try to solve all problems, in a knee jerk response to that demand, to a point where today, you have to only dig out a decent hatch or a sedan from fossilised relics.
But then, there are a few buyers, very few, who live on the fringes of the market and on the edge of sanity, romantically smelling greasy roses in the Gardens of Niche, who pray every day for one thing – purpose-built monoliths. These prematurely greying, disgruntled old-souls are often seen mumbling away in solitude, or at watering holes in the company of their rare tribesmen, talking to themselves about better times gone by and glaring into the sunny horizon, clinging to hopes of better times to come. And wait they do, patiently, for the coming true of prophecies.
They have no vote or veto, no power beyond their own dreams, for their numbers are few, and dwindling, as they lose more of their kind to the seductive lure of the mainstream. And since they are moderately well-read and have a vague idea of economics and the ways of the world, they hold a candle and say a silent prayer for carmakers who have budged and given in to the same temptations, democratising once-upon-a-time niche offerings, to cast they’re net wider to stay afloat in this cruel, cruel world.
They’re not heard, and nowadays not even seen, for they have retracted into the shadows, beyond the reach of touch screens and massage seats. You can ask around old FNGs and workshops because they were always their only true friends. Accomplices in keeping alive unique unicorns and niche examples. They always knew a few fantastic beasts, and where to find them – in the embassy and army auctions. Even today, they roam God’s green earth, having given up on car companies who care only for cash cows and counter clangs.
Force Motors, is their last solace, a balm to their wounded souls, offering a really rugged, purpose-built, off-road truck that can be purchased off the shelf, with a factory-fitted snorkel and manual mechanical differentials on both axles, shod with All-terrain tyres, and built like a tank with metal all around. What’s more, Force has finally even managed to spruce up interiors beyond their simple, earthly expectations, including thingamajigs like Apple Car Play and a couple of other abbreviations these guys didn’t know even existed or ever cared for. This is the target audience for the Gurkha and Force Motors shares a special relationship with this group, discussing nuances in hushed voices, without TV commercials, advertisements or loud capitalist instruments, lest it garners the attention of the mainstream and quickly be subjected to review of ‘experts’, followed number wars, fought safely on keyboards, and finally only to be obscurely viewed through the same blurred grey, hotch-potch lenses.
The Gurkha is Force’s audacious offering for those who know what it is and understand what they’re signing up for. Force Motors, has dared, ever since the first generation Gurkha, to shun the jack-of-all-trades, and give us a Master-of-One.
Force Motors has been bashed, bruised and battered by many, including yours truly, for their lack of enterprise in the past. While their original ‘Gurkha’ and its subsequent iterations, lit up the eyes of many an enthusiast, there were always harsh edges (both figuratively and literally) that distanced it from anyone, but daredevils who dared to bring one home. The story of Force Motors, at least for gear heads like us, has been one of the missed opportunities and poor execution. But there’s another side of the story to the Maker of the Gurkha. A story often ignored and buried beneath the burden of past apathy. I feel that story needs to be told and needs to be told, now.
The Maker.
Force Motors – This story goes beyond what you know as India’s largest van maker. The company that coined the word ‘autorickshaw’ and made terms like ‘Tempo’ common parlance, is synonymous with automobile industrialisation in India. With ‘Hanseat’s rolling off its factory at Goregaon, Mumbai from 1958, this is no new kid on the block. To put that in perspective, this company had dug in its heels firmly, well before the two market leaders of today were even founded- Maruti (1981, India) and Hyundai (1967, Korea)!
The company speaks, from its heart to millions of Indians, through its hardy, reliable vehicles which tread well beyond the city tarmac, deep into the Indian hinterland day in and day out. This is a ‘Force’ that literally moves the aam aadmi and the country ahead with him.
If you are reading this, chances are, that you have at least one happy memory of a family vacation, chugging along scenic hills in a Force Traveller, or of grinning your way to school in a Force School Bus, or maybe been amazed at counting how many passengers can a Trax on the country side really accommodate, or perhaps even had a loved one’s life saved in a Force Ambulance. Depending on how old you are, you probably learnt to pronounce and throw around cool words like Matador, Minidor thanks to Force. How many childhood memories of snacks shared in Tempo Matadors? No matter who we are, Force has been intertwined with our lives, more than we know.
Force is at its core, an engineering company. It has been producing the Benz OM616 (Oel Motor) engine under license from Daimler Benz since 1982 and this motor has served long and served well and still does duty today in Force’s latest offerings including our Gurkha. Force also manufactures engines and shafts for Mercedes Benz sold in India and has been making BMW engines since 2015.
Rough road vehicles have been embedded in the company’s DNA, with the Trax rolling out way back in 1988, which has evolved over the years into a robust, instantly recognisable household name, and a reliable workhorse. This rich pedigree led to the birth of the first Force Gurkha subsequently, and its iterations thereon, to become the Extreme Offroad vehicle that swallowed tricky terrain for breakfast.
The Gurkha
If names could sell cars, this would have set sales charts on fire. Unarguably, the most aptly named vehicle in India, which manages to compress so much meaning of its purpose into six letters. The underpinnings of the strong-hearted, sturdy built Gurkha is synonymous with all that the legendary soldier represents.
In a sea of charlatan SUVs, hatches on stilts, and fancy electronic gizmos, the Gurkha stands alone as the last bastion of honesty of purpose. It doesn’t pretend to be something else. It simply understands and truly justifies its sole reason for existence. It refuses to trade its resilient interiors for a fancy soft leather dashboard, neither does it give up its mechanical differentials for electronic dials. It definitely doesn’t brag lofty power figures just so that it looks good on the specs sheet, because it doesn’t care to squeeze the last ounce of peak power from a small motor to please the paper tigers. It goes about its job, with a good sounding thrum of its big-hearted engine, with a low-end grunt that literally moves mountains, and can wade through rivers while it’s at it.
Then this is the son of the soil. It is made for those who have an ear to the ground and their feet planted firmly on it. For those who do not need to announce their arrival to the world through fancy badges of snob value. It doesn’t believe in complicating systems to a point of unreliability, just to play to the galleys. In its matured simplicity lies its ultimate sophistication. This vehicle is so elegantly simple and built on straightforward mechanicals, you could hand it down as an heirloom to your children.
Unlike other vehicles, it was not built out of haste, to rake in volumes, or for concealed cost-cutting draped in perceived quality. This vehicle was sculpted, savoured and structured to be something much more than the sum of its parts. This was born out of pure passion that transcends well beyond market dynamics and sales figures.
The Gurkha exists because Force Motors breathed life into steel and forged a truck like no other.
Built from scratch while still staying true to its roots, the 2021 Gurkha is a sequel done right. It has learnt well from its predecessor and earnestly makes good on its deficits, while admirably playing to its strengths. The interior layout is a sea change from the outgone model and is a true coming of age for this generation of the Gurkha.
Inside the refreshed cabin, it just about ticks the right boxes with its airbags, ABS and a touch screen unit and a bone-chilling AC keeping you safely on the other side of the missus’ ire, while you dismiss what lesser mortals would call unforgiving terrain comfortably, in the only vehicle built in India with manual, mechanical front and rear differential locks.
With a body built like a tank, it is indeed thoughtful in its ISOFIX seats letting adventure begin young, and is generous in its seat bolstering for the young at heart. A rear seat is a place where memories are made, as amused kids peer through the large side glass, which is as wide as their innocent imagination.
This Gurkha, then belongs, as much to the family tourer, as it does to the gentleman off-roader. It is no more reserved only for the recluse or for the rebels. It throws its arms and three doors wide open for all those who can appreciate what it has truly become.
Continue reading BHPian vigneshkumar31’s Force Gurkha ownership for more insights & information.
Keyword: Ownership experience of Andaman's first 2021 Force Gurkha SUV