If you want to finance your next Roxor vehicle, you will come to learn about Mahindra Finance very quickly. In fact, Mahindra Automotive North America has brought financing for Roxor in-house with the nation’s first in-house-funded recreational powersports program.
What does this mean for you and your next purchase?
Who is Mahindra?
Mahindra produces the Roxor, a 4x4 off-road utility vehicle with two seats. It’s assembled by Mahindra Automotive North America but its origins come from the Indian Mahindra Thar. The Roxor was released in March 2018 throughout the U.S.
This off-highway UTV is assembled in Auburn Hills, Michigan and sold within powersports dealers through the country.
The company behind Roxor is no stranger to business. Mahindra is a multinational car manufacturing corporation with headquarters in India. It’s actually one of the largest in that country and the largest tractor manufacturer in the world.
While we haven’t seen their automobiles yet in the States, Mahindra plans to release a full line of cars and other motor vehicles in the United States in the coming decade.
Why the Change?
Previously Roxor financing was handled by Wells Fargo CDF. They provided all of the floorplan financing for the company while Sheffield Financial and Synchrony Financial provided retail funding for all UTVs.
The OEM now hopes to become the “one-stop shop” as they call it. This provides dealers the chance to make operations more streamlined.
With this new setup, Mahindra Finance can provide both wholesale and retail financing. There are no longer two separate companies to deal with. This reduces paperwork and ensures no time lag.
If the dealer prefers to use CDF, they still can. With that said, Mahindra Finance will be the preferred lender. They will offer the best terms and conditions. As far as the retail end, Mahindra plans to continue offering financing programs from some other lenders.
Mahindra Finance is based out of Houston for the United States. As of October 2018, the company signed more than half of the almost 400 dealers to the agreement. Over the slow buying season, joining the deal wasn’t a major priority for most dealers.
Still, new retail promotions launched March 1st. Mahindra Finance plans to bring more dealers onboard during this busy spring season. If plans go well, Mahindra Finance will have all the dealers signed up by the end of summer 2019.
Increased Workforce Support
To keep up with the expected busyness this spring, Mahindra Automotive North America promoted three Roxor Off-Road members of the sales team. They will now be responsible for helping grow the dealer network and providing additional dealer support.
These promotions also allow Mahindra to dedicate additional manpower to the onboard dealers.
Jeff Brunson is the new North America sales director. He has been on the Roxor sales team since the launch last March. His new position has him reporting directly to the Vice President of Sales and puts him in charge of all the regional sales directors throughout Canada and the United States.
Mark Render was a regional sales director and is now overseeing the United States dealer network plus the sales team development. With 25 years of experience, it’s pretty impressive that he’s worked for T3 Motion, Erik Buell Racing and even Segway.
Johnny Hayes has been in CFMOTO, Yamaha and Suzuki sales positions for many years. Now, he is in charge of the south region which consists of New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. As Mahindra continues to expand, the salesforce will add new members focused on further growth.
RoxNRoll
To kick off the spring excitement, there was a promotional event called RoxNRoll where Mahindra Finance USA offered payments as low as $199 per month plus a one-year warranty and $1,000 additional trade-in value.
Given that this promotion happened within the first year of Roxor production, you should expect to see infrequent promotions of equal or greater magnitude coming down through the pipeline in late 2019 and into 2020.
The Future of Roxor
Mahindra continues to move forward in selling this UTV in America despite a pending trade complaint from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Jeep actually won the first round when the U.S. International Trade Commission determined that FCA could enforce its trade dress agreement with Mahindra from years ago.
These details were in relation to the Scorpio which never came to the States, but the contract is still binding between the two companies. With that said, there’s no way of determining what the outcome of this lengthy battle will be, so the Roxor continues to be sold and our writers continue to speculate.
Mahindra is confident that everything will turn out in their favor, which is exactly why they haven’t backed down. Furthermore, the public has fallen in love with this off-road UTV and it won’t go away lightly.
The future of Mahindra in North America
The next step for Mahindra is to infiltrate car dealerships. Within their network of almost 400 powersports dealers, they found that 1/3 of them also own a car dealership. This allows the company to build relationships for the next stage of their plan.
Within the next 18 months, we expect to hear about some cars coming to the U.S. market. First, is the Marazzo which is a Mahindra minivan. Not only did it perform well during crash safety tests done internationally, but it also has some technology we desire such as Apple CarPlay.
And once Mahindra has their own car dealerships, you can bet the Roxor will be sitting front and center despite not being street legal from the factory.
While Mahindra hopes to gain the trust of the American public, they are aiming first for the Postal Service. The USPS is hoping to find a new lineup of delivery vehicles. Mahindra is happy to be one of the finalists on this $6 billion project.
Does any of this affect your decision?
If you were planning a purchase of the Mahindra Roxor, does learning of any of this change your decision? Will having Mahindra providing their own financing make you more likely to apply for a loan? Let us know in the comments.
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