Haval Outreach Expedition Finale

By Lawrence Minnie

Public perception of Chinese products has seen a shift lately, with the build quality of some brands improving exponentially. New kid on the block, Haval, set out to change that wavering perception in one fell swoop by tackling an arduous cross-country expedition with a sample fleet of its model lineup.

Brand perception is a really critical part of selling vehicles. Unfortunately, Chinese manufactured vehicles have had a less than stellar reputation in South Africa, due to some very unscrupulous operators ruining the market with some rather dubious products – all in pursuit of a quick buck.

Haval South Africa, a subsidiary of GWM in SA, knew that this was the uphill battle they faced when they first launched the H1 and H2 a while back. They then brought in the H6 and H6C, and relied heavily on the word of mouth approach to move these models.

Go big or Go home

Recently though, they’ve decided to go all-in, and embarked on a very ambitious marketing exercise to bring awareness to the brand and their all new model, the H9.

The Haval Outreach Expedition was an 18 day cross-country journey with a small fleet of Haval vehicles, consisting of a GWM Steed double cab, an H2, an H6, two H6Cs, and two of the brand new H9s, all of which set out to challenge the brand perception surrounding this Chinese manufacturer. Along the way, a number of charitable events went down, and visits to new dealerships were conducted.

The journey was divided into three legs, with Autotrader representatives joining on all three. Martin Pretorius joined on the first leg from Johannesburg to Durban via the Kruger Park and Sodwana Bay. Farzana Chaumoo then joined in from Durban to Port Elizabeth via Coffee Bay, and I had the honour of joining the last leg from PE to Cape Town via Knysna and Cape Agulhas. The total journey easily exceeded 5000kms, and the small fleet of vehicles covered the distance without a single breakdown or issue.

Garden Route backroads

I was handed the keys to an H9 in Port Elizabeth, before we made or way to St Francis bay for our first overnight stop. I settled in behind the wheel expecting a short drive down the N2, but our route said otherwise. Most of the route which would take us all the way to Cape Town was, in fact, off-road. Long stretches of gravel and dust greeted us, with an icy wind coming in off the ocean that drove the giant wind turbines that scattered the land scape.

We arrived in the late afternoon, and after overnighting in St Francis Bay, we hit the road early the next morning, and made our way to Bakkenduine and our first opportunity to test the new H9 in the deep sand dunes.

I can happily report that, after a super fun day in the largest Tonka Toy sandpit I’ve seen since Peru, the only time an H9 got stuck was when the venue owner/instructor purposefully did so while testing the off-road driving systems to their extremes.

Kicking the sand out of our shoes we made our way to Knysna, first visiting the Knysna Heads and then moved onto our overnight stop.

Early morning saw us once again hitting the road and making our way to Arniston. A highlight of the trip was crossing the Breede River on the only hand drawn ferry in SA. We spent the night in Arniston before venturing out the next morning to find the southernmost point of Africa at Agulhas.

From Agulhas, we traveled further south along the coast through Hermanus, then on to Gordons Bay, and finally followed the late afternoon traffic to our final destination in Constantia.

This would be where the final closing ceremony and gala event would be held, where the keys to the first H9 to sold and delivered in the Western Cape were to be handed over.

Success

Haval seems to be on track to take the fight to the large OEMs in South Africa. Public perception is slowly shifting, and budget-conscious shoppers will certainly be looking very closely at this brand. Personally, I think Haval has got their formula right, and if dealerships continue to sprout as quickly as they have, we will be seeing a lot more H1’s, H2’s, H6’s and new H9’s on our roads.

As for the H9, it is a brilliant piece of engineering in its own right. It’s comfortable, capable, spacious, safe and most importantly, affordable. I won’t wax lyrical about this amazing vehicle – Martin Pretorius has already done so in his write up, and I won’t address the majority of the questions we received on the journey, as Farzana did that in hers.

I will say this though: the local manufacturers, who have had the market all to themselves for too long, had better watch this space.