Great Wall Ute interior revealed

Great Wall has leaked interior details of its all-new ute ahead of its first public viewing at next week’s Shanghai motor show.

While Great Wall last week dropped exterior images of the tough ‘adventure’ version of the Steed replacement on the wires. This time the company has released three images showing interior details of the alternative ‘urban’ model.

The new cabin shows the extent to which ute manufacturers are eschewing the humble, Spartan ute interior of old, and makes the existing Steed interior look very passé.

Great Wall says the family-oriented “urban” model is designed to create an intimate driving environment with the use of monotone surrounds and contrasting jacquard texture seats and door inserts.

While colour schemes are not even close to decided for the Australian launch set for next year, the contrasting cream/dark brown palette indicates Great Wall is going to be a lot more adventurous with its interior hues. Certainly the trend for contrasting stitching has been taken up with gusto, as it appears on the dash, seats, centre console and door cards.

The instrument cluster appears to be back-lit rather than a digital panel while the leather, deep-dish steering wheel houses typical buttons for cruise control, trip computer, audio control and so on.

The central 9-inch touchscreen is one of the biggest in the (ute) business and operates voice recognition, infotainment, climate control and even displays engine oil level. The new Great Wall will also come with push button start, Bluetooth and remote vehicle start function.

The short-throw stubby automatic gear lever is from the Haval H9 SUV, and the ZF-sourced eight-speed automatic (with dual-range part-time 4WD transfer) has normal, economy and sport modes.

As revealed last week, the ute will have driver-selectable diff locks front and rear, the buttons for which are shown on the centre stack in the photos here.

Also seen in the photos are controls for a swathe of contemporary features such as Hill Descent Control (on the centre stack), while adjacent to the transmission lever are the hill-hold function, electronic park brake and what appears to be selectable assist levels for the (presumably) electric power steering. We’ll know more when Great Wall unveils the ute on April 16.