Mahindra started building Jeeps under license back when dirt was new.

Today, this specialist 4×4 firm that quit the UK in 1996 is to return, hoping to cash in on the boom in Sport Utility Vehicles, writes Richard Yarrow…

The company is Mahindra, of Mumbai, India, and will relaunch in Britain next year with the Goa.

It’s a seven or eight-seat full-sized off-roader with a 2.6-litre 115bhp common-rail turbodiesel engine. It’s likely there will be just one trim level, GLX, with central locking, air-con, power windows, two airbags and optional leather upholstery. Bosses hope to sell up to 1,000 SUVs a year in Britain. The car has just gone on sale in Spain for �21,000 (�14,300).

Pawan Goenka, president of the firm’s automotive division, is in negotiations to find a UK distributor. “We are looking to create a dealer network, but we won’t be in multi-franchise showrooms. Whoever becomes our distributor will have to open Mahindra sites. We have minimum standards, and each must be able to display three cars comfortably. We want people to be able to walk around the cars because we are creating an image for the company, but also for India.”

Mahindra was founded in Mumbai in 1945. After years of selling Jeep Wrangler lookalikes built under licence from Chrysler (now DaimlerChrysler), it launched its first in-house vehicles in 2002.

Last year the company topped 150,000 sales globally. Most were in India, but as well as Spain, the firm has recently set up shop in Italy and France. Belgium is next, then the UK.

For many British customers - particularly those who remember the CityRover, a rebadged supermini from Mahindra’s rival Tata - taking an Indian car seriously could be hard. “This is one thing we have to overcome.

We don’t want to be coloured by other companies, but we have generally found that once people get to know our product, it doesn’t last too long,” said Dr Goenka.