All-new Great Wall ute draws closer

When Great Wall Motors pulls the sheets off its all-new replacement for the Steed ute at next month’s Shanghai motor show, it will not only be offered with a feature sorely lacking in the current Steed -- an automatic transmission.

According to Great Wall, the bigger, safer and higher-tech new Chinese pick-up will also include a rugged dual-cab off-road variant that the brand claims was “specifically designed” for Australia and New Zealand.

The Great Wall Steed successor was first seen in an official design sketch (pictured here) presented last year by sister luxury brand Haval, which has said it will not launch a ute under that brand name.

As these Australian CAD patent drawings reveal, an Aussie-spec “off-road adventure” model will be offered with features including a snorkel, prominent wheel-arch flares, sports bar, roof rails, tubular side steps and a chunky rear step bumper bar.

For the first time, the Great Wall ute will be offered with an automatic gearbox -- a new eight-speed transmission, likely to be the same unit fitted in the Haval H9.

Given that GWM has confirmed the new ute will share its ladder chassis with sister brand Haval’s large H9 SUV, it’s certain to be bigger than the existing Great Wall Steed.

The new Great Wall ute is bound to achieve a much better crash safety score than the existing Steed’s woeful two-star ANCAP result. GWM is aiming for a five-star ANCAP result, for which autonomous emergency braking (AEB) is a prerequisite.

Indeed, the initial design sketch you see here lists AEB – as well as forward collision warning (FCW), automatic cruise control (ACC) – as some of its key features, along with a 3000kg tow capacity, 4x2 and 4x4 drivetrains and even a hybrid powertrain option.

GWM has previously said it’s keen to develop both hybrid and all-electric versions of the new ute, while a three-tonne towing capacity would be well up on the Steed’s sub-par 2000kg figure -- but less than the 3500kg offered by class-leaders like the Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger,

Great Wall’s Australian marketing manager, Bill Soo, confirmed to carsales.com.au that the Steed name will be put to pasture with the current series.

While Soo wouldn’t divulge the new ute’s name, he said it is expected to go into production in China this September, with Australian deliveries expected in the fourth quarter of next year.

The CAD drawings revealed overnight depict a nose that has a Toyota Tundra look to it, with its oversize trapezoidal grille. The Great Wall pick-up has narrow headlights and what appears to be a relatively low-set front bumper with integrated fog lights. The side profile and rear-end appear very similar to the coterie of existing ute competitors.

You can only hope that the wheels and tyres are not to scale, as they look woefully undersized in the CAD images.

Hopefully the new ute will offer a step up from the current model’s inadequate 171mm ground clearance.

It’s believed that the new Great Wall ute will be fitted with a version of the H9’s 140kW/440Nm 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel as fitted in overseas markets, replacing the Steed’s under-par 110kW/320Nm 2.0-litre engine.

Both 4x2 and 4x4 models will be available in Australia, and while four body variants – single-cab, both standard and extended wheelbase dual-cab, and the Adventure dual-cab model – will be offered in China, it’s not clear which of the variants will come here other than the latter.

The Great Wall Steed was launched in April 2016 as a facelifted version of the GWM V-series, which debuted in Australia in 2009. The V-series body/chassis itself was heavily based on the 2002 RA Isuzu D-MAX.

The Steed hasn’t gained much momentum in the key 4x4 ute market since its arrival in 2016. In 2018, 4x4 sales totalled just 434 -- well below even its main Chinese competitor, the LDV T60 (3194 sales), and a drop in the ocean compared with the segment-leading HiLux (38,580).

We’ll know more about the new Great Wall ute when it’s revealed on April 16 in Shanghai.