Mahindra & Mahindra’s abortive plans to bring its rugged diesel-powered pickups to the US have garnered quite a cult following here at TTAC.  We follow the impending coming of M&M religiously. And now we demand license fees for the continuously coming cult car.

M&M has taken the cult concept to heart.

“We want to be India’s first global cult brand,” Anand Mahindra told Automotive News [sub]. They want to do that with the help of Korea’s Ssangyong which M&M bought on the cheap after it had been abandoned by China’s SAIC.  This had caused a minor civil war around the Korean plant. Says AN:

“The company switched owners four times, faced bankruptcy and suffered one of the most violent strikes in modern Korean history in 2009. Workers in that clash took control of a plant for almost three months, using iron pipes and Molotov cocktails to battle air and land police commandos armed with tear gas and water cannons.”

How the cult will come together is anybody’s guess. The article is long on to which schools  Anand Mahindra went, and that he is an avid Twitterer, but it lacks specifics of the coming cult.

Take it from someone who’s been there, Mahindra: The only cult that counts in the business is the cult of the golden calf  by the name of sales & profits.