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Dignitaries and Mahindra SA staff and management came together to celebrate a manufacturing milestone for the Durban assembly plant. Picture: SUPPLIED
Dignitaries and Mahindra SA staff and management came together to celebrate a manufacturing milestone for the Durban assembly plant. Picture: SUPPLIED

The 20,000th Mahindra Pik Up bakkie has rolled off the company’s Durban assembly facility.

The milestone was celebrated at a ceremony this week attended by dignitaries from SA and India, including the high commissioner of India to SA, Shri Prabhat Kumar; the consul-general of India in Durban, Dr Thelma David; Corrie Kotze, the CEO of Auto Investment Holdings Group (AIH), Mahindra SA’s production partner and the staff from the group’s SA head office. 

Mahindra marks its 20th year in SA in October and the Pik Up production milestone follows six years after the company opened its assembly facility on May 25 2018. The vehicles were previously imported. 

The plant, which employs 90 people, assembles vehicle kits imported from India, with the addition of some SA components in a manufacturing system known as semi knocked-down (SKD). 

When the facility was opened the goal was to produce 2,500 Pik Ups a year, but that has been exceeded four fold, according to the company. At the celebrations, a special Pik Up S6 4x4, the 20,000th unit, shared the stage with the dignitaries. 

Mahindra first started producing single cab Pik Up models at the plant and later added its double cab and special edition models. Today all Pik Up models are assembled there. 

SA is Mahindra’s largest market outside India and the brand has seen its sales and operations grow significantly in the last six years. Mahindra increased its investment to keep pace with its growth, opening a new multi-storey parts warehouse in Johannesburg, a new high-tech training facility in Centurion and a special fitment centre in Kempton Park.

“The Mahindra assembly facility could rightfully be described as the largest and most complex of its type on the continent if one considers single-brand facilities that produce a consistent flow of vehicles every month,” Mahindra SA CEO Rajesh Gupta said. 

Mahindra and AIH, which operates the assembly facility on behalf of the brand, announced they would soon start production on a new 14,000m2 assembly facility in SA to be completed by June 2025, and the current Pik-Up would continue to be produced alongside the new-generation model being launched soon.

Mahindra unveiled the new Global Pik Up double cab concept in 2023, previewing a lifestyle-orientated bakkie that will take on the popular Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux.

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