Journey with the Tank 500
The Flinders Ranges come calling GWM’s new luxury SUV.
The first time you see it, you’ll see how it commands the road and demands to be acknowledged. You open the door and a step slides out to welcome you aboard. When you meld into the driver’s seat of the Tank 500 and see the elegant array of technology at your fingertips, you know this is a vehicle ready for adventure.
This new luxury SUV from GWM, really does feel like the perfect blend of highway luxury cruiser and off-road explorer with it’s sunroof that stretches the length of it’s seven-seater frame and seats that are designed for drivers with their adjustment array and lumbar support along with ventilation, heating and, with the flick of a switch, massage.
The commanding centre console is presided over by the scalloped gear shift column that feels assertive and smooth. There’s assistive parking controls and drive mode selection for the full-time four wheel drive. The large touchscreen draws from the output of an array of cameras to create smart safety, a 360º view under the chassis, so you know what’s in front, behind and either side of you whenever you get behind the wheel.
Because that’s what you want to do. You’ve always wanted to go back-roading up in the Flinders. Well now you’ve got the ideal vehicle for it. You key in your destination of Bendleby Ranges, and find it really is only three and a half hours from Adelaide. Soon you’ll be in the Flinders, with its jaw dropping landscapes and abundance of history.
The highway driving is smooth with the turbo two-litre hybrid and nimble nine-speed automatic transmission. You take the Horrocks Highway at Two Wells, and pass through Mallala and Blyth. You pass silently along the edge of Brinkworth, on a route once favoured by camel drivers, and the Overland Telegraph. The original Ghan ran through here somewhere too, but the landscape of nuggety craggy rock has you entranced as you journey along the edge of the valley to Orroroo. Bendleby Ranges is close but the day is still young so you set out for a drive up the ridge and select a suitable off-road mode from the Tank 500’s circular selection of 11 all-terrain drive settings. Right alongside you can also set your low gearbox if needed and lock your rear differential for the balance of traction you need.
And then as the Tank 500 bites down on the torque, you rise over rock and dirt to the top of the ridge and look across for yourself on the famed Wilpena Pound, the natural mountain ampitheatre that is eight times the size of Uluru and part of a landscape that is over 600 million years old.
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You drop back down to your campsite at Bendleby and enjoy steaks off the open fire and watch the stars, thick with the dreaming above you. Opportunity awaits in the morning for further adventure as you cut across the forest floor and drive down a dried-up creek bed, rutted by rain and bordered with red river gums. You stow your phone out of the way in the cavity under the woodgrain at the head of the console. It instantly starts charging. You pass a mob of roos and and then the gums start to thin out and where the creek opens up to a valley under you, there’s emus nibbling on low scrub, and it was like you were meant to be there.
The Tank 500 surprises for its size and the way this beauty behaves on the dirt keys you in to what you’ve been missing all your life. The Tank, you reckon, would eat up the drive along The Copper Track at Warraweena Station and you say to yourself you’ll be coming back to journey along the 1800’s stagecoach route that connected the old copper mines at Sliding Rock, Nuccaleena and Blinman in a vehicle that is not only luxurious but also safe, having earned a 5-Star ANCAP rating, and can do all that its asked.
With a featureset and finish more common in vehicles at twice the price, the GWM Tank 500 is available in two hybrid variants — the Lux and the Ultra. Book a test drive today at your local GWM dealer.
