GWM Malaysia has also announced a “new” Pistachio Green exterior hue for its cutesy Good Cat.
Great Wall Motor Malaysia (GWM Malaysia) looks to be really pushing the boat out in terms of local launches for 2024, as news just in from the Chinese automaker itself for its Tank 300 and Ora 07 have already landed in Malaysia ahead of its imminent Malaysian debut.
Now having previously teased its impending local debut since last year already, the images shared by GWM Malaysia showing for a row of Ora 07s at a local customs yard shouldn’t exactly be a surprise to anyone over here already. What should come as a surprise though is for these curvaceous fully-electric fastbacks to be joined in line by its diametric opposite, in the form of the boxy and rugged Tank 300.
Unfortunately, GWM Malaysia has not been exactly forthcoming on the further details of this Wrangler wannabe. So it remains to be confirmed as to what exactly lies under the hood of this butch-looking SUV, in addition to the more pertinent question of how much it will cost over here.
What can nevertheless be stated at this point is for the Tank 300 to be available in Australia at least with the choice of either a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-pot paired with an 8-speed ZF automatic transmission that outputs 227 PS and 380 Nm of torque to all four wheels, or an electrified alternative of the same capacity that is hooked up to a 9-speed self-shifter, which apparently outputs a combined 342 PS and a whopping 648 Nm of torque.
Going from the Aussie spec sheets for it too, the Tank 300 should also be more than capable off-road. GWM currently quotes for its body-on-frame-based off-roader to have a minimum ground clearance of 224 mm, with an approach and departure angle of 33º and 34º respectively. Other tech featured on this 4×4 to help it tackle the rough stuff includes an All-Terrain Mode Selector and a Land Rover-esque transparent chassis function on its surround view camera, with the higher tier Ultra variants down under further packing a front diff-lock to go with the standard rear unit fitted on all trims.
As for more city-centric conveniences on the other hand, the rather plush and almost G-Wagen-looking cabin of the Tank 300 comes as standard with a pair of 12.3-inch displays serving as the main driver’s display and central infotainment screen. This rugged 4×4 also comes with a suite of active and passive safety tech on board as standard too, which has hence earned it a rather respectable 5-star ANCAP safety rating.
In fact, combining the information from the Aussie spec sheet and the images shared of the off-roader that landed in Malaysia, it can be reasonably deduced from the chrome alloys (that are incidentally wrapped in road-biased Michelin rubber) that these examples that are already over here are the aforementioned higher-tier Ultra trims of the Tank 300. This should therefore see it to be further equipped with heated and cooled front Nappa leather thrones, in addition to a 9-speaker Infinity sound system and a 64-colour (upgraded from 7) interior ambient lighting setup.
Moving on now to discussing briefly the Ora 07, this all-electric fastback land over here in two guises. The first of which will feature a single front-mounted motor and an expected range of 640 km, while the other is a dual-motored variant with a claimed range of 550 km.
The Ora 07 currently retails over in our neighbours up north for between 1.299 million baht (RM 172,000) and 1.499 million baht (RM 200,000), which if it is able to arrive over here with those prices will place it smack-dab in between the brewing sub-RM 200k B-segment e-sedan sales battle brewing between the Tesla Model 3 and BYD Seal. GWM Malaysia has previously teased for this all-electric fastback with its Porsche design cues to land locally sometime within the first quarter of this year, with a high likelihood for the Tank 300 to debut at around the same time too.
And just to end here on a more intriguing development from the Chinese automaker, GWM Malaysia has also in these flurry of recent announcements stated that the Ora Good Cat is to now be available locally with a Pistachio Green hue. This is flagged as interesting because said exterior colour was actually already launched previously by the marque locally for the exact model in question a few months ago, so this notice could just be that additional stock of this shade may have only just arrived on our shores.
