Have you seen the Mahindra Diesel trucks

California

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That is good to see.

Mahindra's arrival has been announced then delayed several times already, apparently while they assemble a US sales network.

I saw their SUV when I was in India, and was impressed with it. Sort of like an early Isuzu Trooper (I had one and loved it) updated for the 21st century. I'm seriously thinking about buying their Scorpio diesel SUV, same thing as the diesel pickups, but maybe after they have sold a few here. It has been sold in India and I think Australia for a while, so they should have all the bugs out of it.

For anyone interested, Mahindra contracted to build jeeps and has been building them for the India market since the early 50's. They are still the primary rural taxi. Then they added the construction of IH tractors in their own factories, and more recently started selling smaller Korean etc tractors to broaden their product line.

This is an old and apparently very wealthy family/brand name. One family member was the first airmail pilot in India and built that up into a big airline that became Air India. Mahindra is sort of the General Electric of India, one among several gigantic international corporations based there.
 
I am in Haiti doing maintenance on a couple of cranes. Their port sank in the earthquake and we have a couple of barges for docks.

Here almost every car and pickup is diesel. The nissans and all the small pickups are diesel. Toyota landcruisers, I would love to have one, they are of the older style, diesel.
I don't know why they aren't shipped to the states.
It was mentioned about the jeep. I saw one made in india that was a copy of an M38 high hood. Diesel, looked like an exact copy of a world war 2 except for the 4sp and about a 6 inch extention to the rear body.
 

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Here are some Mahindra jeeps in their native habitat, rural India. They are used as taxis to go from the highway (or market) back down the cowpaths out to rural peoples homes.

Alongside the highway between Delhi and Jaipur.
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The Indian Army uses what must be the first export model, looks like a CJ3A. This one ahead of us looked brand new.
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Tourist taxis parked at Amber Fort, Jaipur.
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A couple of modern Mahindra jeeps, below. I think this model is named Mahindra Major.

The Scorpio coming to the US is later than this; it looks like an overstyled Toyota.
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I took these photos in 2004.

RD, can you get some photos of what's in Haiti?

It is good to hear the port is being repaired. The news here sort of dropped that part of the story, and I wondered what happened. Are the cranes and docks more-or-less functional by now? How is all the stuff getting in?
 
Unfortunatly my camera disappeared.

As far as the docks, I wouldn't be surprised if our barges are there until they rust away as docks. This is a personal observation only.

This country has no money to replace the docks as far as I can see. The buildings at dockside, or what was dockside are unuseable. One crane is standing in 30ft of water on top of the original dock that ran a quater mile into the bay. It was 4days old when it went down. 4million I was told it cost.
The trucks here are something to see. They wouldn't be allowed on the backest of the backroads at home. Missing a third of their lugnuts, bent frames from overloads, tires I am afraid to look at for the fear they will explode at anytime. One came on the barge to pick up a load with 3 flats on one side of the trailer. Some run with one flat day after day. I could go on and on, sorry, a bit off the track.

Everything around is in ruins. Folks live in any shelter they can make out of tarps and some are fortunate enough to have a tent.

If you can imagine it, if you took your town and took everyone out of their home and had them live on what was left over if all the buildings and houses collapsed you can relate to what it is like here. Any piece of dirt, hillside or flatspot has someone living on it.

Folks trying to take a bath with the water from a manhole in the street, modesty out the window, sad to see, but reality.

Back to the jeeps. Yes those are the jeeps that I saw that the Japanese had. Would sure like to have one, left hand drive of course.
 
One more thing about the cranes.

We brought 2 4100 manitowocs over, one for each barge. Some ships use their own gear. We unload barges and the ships that don't have gear. Lot of military coming and going, some landing craft and we have a place they can pull up to and drop the ramp. It is a very busy place. Right now with the need building the piers back while trying to tend to the vessels coming would be next to impossible. There is room for only two at a time and storage is small on land.

There is so much to do here it is overwhelming. Just getting around town is a challenge. No rules, horns blaring, dodging open manholes , people in the streets competing with cars. There are no sidewalks, they are full of rubble. It is amazing there aren't more casualties from that.

To start cleanup they will have to move folks so they can use a dedicated streets just for moving material. Going to be years before any assemblence of normal.

Remember, this is just one observation, and I am only a mechanic maintaining the cranes.
 

California

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Is that you down there?

View attachment 3793

This is off Google Earth. Does it still look about the same now?

And - I should have asked if you have high speed internet there. Sorry if I bombed you with too many photos, above.

I could post zoomed versions of details in this photo, or other parts of the city, if you want. (and you have a fast connection to see it!)
 
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