With all the excitement around The GWM P-Series we thought it might be worth taking a look at the History of GWM. How did they land up at this point and who were the influential players in building the brand to where it is today? GWM was named after the Great Wall of China and it was formed in the year 1984. GWM is currently China’s biggest producer of SUV’s.
GWM’s started with low volume production of trucks. The first of these trucks was called CC130 which was followed by the CC513. In the 1990’s the brand started producing sedan vehicles grabbing the attention of the growing middle class in China.
The brand first entered the South African market in 2007 launching with single cab and double cab bakkies. This meant they entered one of the biggest contested markets in the country. A few years later the company began production on a number of SUV’s and pick up’s namely the HAVAL H3 Diesel Comfortable Model, HAVAL M2, HAVAL H5 European Style Version, HAVAL H5 Intelligent Version, HAVAL H5 Automatic Transmission, MPV model Great Wall V80, WINGLE 5, and the first sedan car Voleex C30.
The GMW brand we see today started to become more recognisable with the global launch of the Haval H6 which won numerous safety awards and is one the icons of the GWM/Haval brand. In 2014 GWM began is focus around production of SUV’s. The H1, H2 and the H6 were the models our market is most familiar with but other models such as the H8 and the H9 were also launched.