| The launch of the new Great Wall Utes will be a small trickle which will eventually lead to a flood of high quality vehicles entering our shores. The 2.2 litre Great Wall SA220 and the 2.4 litre Great Wall V240 double cab Utes arrive at an opportune time in the market where light commercial buyers are looking for quality and durability as well as plenty of bang for their buck. Both petrol powered vehicles are specified with five-speed manual transmissions and uniquely both receive durable leather trim rather than cloth on their seats. While the V240 arrives with airbags and anti-lock brakes the SA220 does not, but in fairness to Great Wall importer Ateco Automotive it’s very much aimed at the contractor end of the fleet and private market and is priced accordingly. Make no mistake, unlike the first Korean cars which arrived in the early to mid 1980s which suffered from poor build quality, the Great Wall SA220 and V240 models are as solidly constructed and well put together as any Thai-built Japanese competitor. We’ve just returned from a visit to the Great Wall head office and factories in Baoding, which is a small town located 140km south of Beijing and the company was kind enough to provide some production vehicles for us to drive over their test and handling track. Both the SA220 and the V240 drive like any normal pick up specified with a leaf suspension at the rear and a double wishbone at the front. Understeer around the high banked test track was to be expected but the locally supplied tyres held on tight as we sped around, even when the rain started to pour down during our test drive. While the petrol engines might not be the most powerful in their class, pick up was more than acceptable, and the gear change was reasonably slick and efficient. Bearing in mind that some modern Utes like the Holden Colorado have pretty average gear shift, the Great Wall units have nothing to be ashamed of. If you have never driven over Belgian pave which is a truly demanding road surface, it’s a true test of how well the suspension and the body structure is engineered and built. Nothing rattled or fell off, the dashboard remained squeak free and there was very little flexing from the tray of the Utes. The Great Wall Motor Company was originally founded in 1976 and it was also the first Chinese automotive manufacturer to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Now the company is seeking to export more vehicles and especially to smaller markets such as New Zealand and Australia. Great Wall says that it has been China’s number one manufacturer of Pickups for the last 10 consecutive years and for the last five years it has been China’s market leader in SUVs. The company owns more than 30 subsidiaries and employs over 22,000 staff. At present, it has a production capability of 400,000 units which is set to expand to 800,000 units by 2010. China incidentally has the capacity of 10 million units. |
Already this year the company has produced 160,000 units (YTD July) of which 3,000 units were right hand drive vehicles for export markets such as Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
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