New Delhi: Several cars came and went to challenge the country’s most popular SUV, the Toyota Fortuner, but none could compete with Toyota’s car. World-renowned companies made several attempts to end the Fortuner’s dominance in the Indian market, including Ford and Chevrolet. Ford competed with Toyota’s SUV with the Endeavour. The Endeavour, with its powerful performance and stunning design, was launched in the market three times. It had so many features that even some super-premium cars were left behind, but the result was zero impact on Fortuner’s sales. As a result, Ford’s condition deteriorated so much that the company had to shut down its business due to falling sales in the country. The same fate befell Chevrolet. Chevrolet launched the Captiva SUV, which also turned out to be a flop. Chevrolet’s sales kept declining, and the company gradually withdrew its business from India.
Now, in this race, the famous off-roading vehicle and SUV manufacturing company Jeep had decided a year ago to challenge the Fortuner. The company introduced its affordable variant of the SUV Meridian in the market. Its price was about 15 lakhs cheaper than the Fortuner. This car was called the Meridian Limited (O). The ex-showroom price of this variant was 38.10 lakhs. Now the company has removed this car from its official website. However, Jeep has not yet disclosed the reason behind discontinuing this SUV.
Competing with features
Car companies have been launching cars with better features than the limited features offered in the Fortuner. Jeep also did the same. The company provided many excellent features in the base variant of the Meridian, such as a 10.1-inch infotainment system, a fully digital driver display, ventilated seats, wireless phone charging, 360-degree camera, Apple CarPlay, and Android Auto.
Impressive look
The company paid full attention to the car’s road presence. The car was launched with a muscular look. Its length was 4,679 mm, width 1,858 mm, and height 1,698 mm. The car had a ground clearance of 203 mm.
Why it did not succeed
The SUV came with a 2.0-liter four-cylinder diesel engine. Separating from the turbo, the company used a MultiJet engine, which improved its mileage. The car’s power was also 167 bhp. This engine could generate torque of 350 Nm. The company offered both a 6-speed manual and a 9-speed automatic gearbox as options.
