REVIEW | GWM Tank 300 serves off-road swagger at a keen price

There are many contenders in the boxy ladder frame off-roader category. Across varying sizes and budgets, you could pick from diminutive but capable players such as the Suzuki Jimny or go for broke with mammoths such as the Land Rover Defender and Mercedes-Benz G-Class.

Somewhere in the middle of that gluttony is the GWM Tank 300, priced from R725,950 for the basic Super Luxury 4x4 trim. The model was introduced last year, initially in hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) guises, which cost between R851,950 and R925,000.

Pricing includes a seven-year/200,000km warranty and five-year/75,000km service plan.

The standard Super Luxury 2.0T tested here uses the same engine as its HEV counterpart but without the electric propulsion componentry. It is a four-cylinder unit and delivers 162kW/380Nm.

Wearing its vibrant shade of orange, the Tank 300 test unit was hard to walk past, parked in the grey, dim confines of our office parking basement.

It is a formidably sized creature, with a length of 4,760mm, a height of 1,903mm and width of 1,930mm, but the chunky side steps make entry and egress much easier.

With a ground clearance of 224mm, a rear differential lock and four-wheel drive, be assured the GWM Tank 300 is a genuine off-roader. The brand is confident in its wading abilities, with a quoted depth of 700mm.

If you are the type of driver sensitive to a vehicle's dynamics, you will be able to tell easily within the first few kilometres that the Tank 300 uses a ladder-frame chassis. The benefits of this architecture are obvious where off-roading and overlanding are concerned, but there are trade-offs to get accustomed to in regular, on-road conditions.

The engineers have imbued the vehicle with an impressive level of refinement. Those side-to-side motions are well-suppressed and the steering, though not especially sharp, imparts a relative amount of confidence. Its chunky 265/60/17 wheels offer assuring protection from Johannesburg's crumbling road infrastructure, with its craters and ridges.

The charm factor of the Chinese off-roader is undeniable. People admire the robust, assertive presence of the model, with its round headlights, stern grille, protruding wheelarches and upright posture.

On the amenities front, things are generous. While this Super Luxury version is technically the base model, it is still replete with just about every goodie the modern shopper expects.

That includes leatherette upholstery, electric seat adjustment for front occupants and a comprehensively digitised cockpit. Well, there is one analogue instrument — a clock mounted on the fascia, which some may appreciate as a novel touch.

Adaptive cruise control, keyless entry and start, LED headlamps and a surround-view camera are further deal sweeteners.

There proved to be one frustration with the GWM Tank 300, however, relating to its lane-keep assist function. It is hypersensitive — perceiving even slight movements towards the painted lines as a potential threat of an all-out collision. Its corrective action of nudging the steering wheel also seems harsher in operation than most of the other systems we have encountered.

Given that the vehicle weighs 2,155kg it is expected that the 2.0T motor would exhibit petrol-gulping tendencies. The instrument cluster of our unit indicated economy of 16l/100km around town. That went down to the 10l/100km mark with open-road driving.

There is a diesel derivative on the cards for 2025 which will address the matter of economy.

Overall, the GWM Tank 300 is a charming product that will appeal to buyers who want an off-roader with left-field appeal.