Supercars, GT3 racing and Dakar rallying: has GWM become the most interesting and exciting Chinese brand?

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It’s tough finding love as a Chinese brand. The general Australian perception is of good value cars that are well-equipped and with long warranty, but memorable styling and driving dynamics are missing in action.

That’s fine. Many want just such vehicles, hence Chinese car sales in our market have gone boom.

But let’s think of the enthusiast, and the types of cars and culture that bring not just fan clubs, but repeat sales for brands. Porsche has nailed this. Ford and Holden, back in the olden days, always had Aussies coming back for more.

At this year’s Beijing auto show, amongst the endless sea of Chinese brands and models – some 1500 different cars over the size of 70 football fields – GWM stood out as the Chinese brand doing the most varied, interesting stuff.

Look, BYD’s YangWang and its 500km/h U9 Xtreme EV has attracted the world’s eyeballs by becoming history’s fastest production car (plus it’s done a sub seven-minute Nurburgring lap), but race fans will only see it on a PlayStation, not swapping paint at Le Mans.

GWM, however, wants to go GT3 racing. Proper big aero, big wings, big noise GT3 racing. The brand we once knew only for rudimentary Great Wall utes now plans to go toe-to-toe with Ferrari, Aston and McLaren. Really?

At the Beijing show it displayed a carbon-fibre monocoque supercar platform with all-new mid-mounted twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 engine allied with a “P2” electric motor, plus a “P4” magnesium electric motor driving the front axle.

Via a translator, GWM founder and chairman Jack Wei said: “The supercar project is benchmarking Ferrari, and (the GWM vehicle) is expected to be revealed around 2027. The performance brand is called GWM GF.” 

This mirrors the likes of Mercedes’ AMG or BMW’s M, with GF apparently standing for “Great Faith”.

Such faith has been thrown towards former McLaren GT chief engineer Adam Thomson. The Brit has taken charge of the GWM supercar and GT3’s engineering and development (after completely clean slating the work done prior to his arrival), stating the platform was designed as a “two-seater and able to be used for multiple powertrains.” 

That opens the door to a range of different combustion engine sizes, likely allied to hybrid and plug-in hybrid applications. A hybrid turbocharged V8, like the platform on display at the show, would be the power monster.

No official images of the finished supercar were shown, but the show display had a video game rendering GWM-branded purple GT3 race car, with obvious design cues from a Ferrari 296 GT3 and McLaren 720S GT3. No bad thing.

“The supercar platform will evolve into a GT3 race car, with a road-going GT3 version as well,” said Mr Wei. 

“Motorsport is seen as a key tool for brand building and global exposure. GWM is interested in participating in events such as Dakar (in a ute, not the GT3 supercar), and potentially other global racing categories, including in Australia.”

That opens the door to the GWM GT3 running at the Bathurst 12 Hour. How would the Mountain faithful respond to a Chinese victor at Panorama? 

As mentioned, Wei also has his eye on something more traditionally in GWM’s wheelhouse – the Dakar Rally. Its Haval SUV brand and the GWM Poer ute (Cannon in our market) have previously competed, but he confirmed the LandCruiser-sized Tank 700 was being developed as a “hybrid race car” and would be on the start line for the 2027 Dakar edition. 

This would be in the Dakar Rally T2 category for production-based off-roaders with minimal modifications. GWM claims it would make the brand “the world’s first automaker to contest Dakar with a production-based hybrid race car.” 

For this we assume as a plug-in hybrid, damn heavy batteries included, but which engine? Ideally it’d be the just-confirmed-for-Tank 700 V8: this year’s Dakar champ in T2 was Land Rover’s Defender OCTA with 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8.

Meanwhile, the Beijing show stand displayed a delightful curio in the shape of a rally-spec, off-road ready, short wheelbase two-seat single cab GWM Cannon ute. This was not your ordinary Cannon fodder.

Looking every inch a stumpy Ford Ranger Raptor rival, it’s built on the same platform as GWM’s Tank 300, and powered by a 260kW/500Nm 3.0L twin-turbo V6 petrol. 

Peering beneath it features a coil rather than leaf sprung rear, and the show example had been lifted and kitted out for off-road competition, including a pair of spares and the fuel tank mounted in the tub.

We were told it’d already proved successful in the production class in Chinese rallies. 

GWM claims to have around 27,000 engineers in its ranks, of which 3000 are software engineers. 

It’s clear this automotive giant has mega lofty goals. And, as these latest announcements prove, fascinating and bold plans to seriously boost GWM’s brand power.