Chinese language auto producer Dongfeng has shoveled some heavy advertising and marketing into its M-Hero 917, the large, brawny, quad-motor luxurious SUV it launched domestically final 12 months and just lately launched in Switzerland.
Now it is about to modify on a flashier marketing campaign, for a brand new 4×4 variant prepared for something and every part Mom Nature can hurl at it. It is known as the M-Hunter and it options an eye-grabbing design with a roll-cage cab and a great deal of floor clearance. It isn’t only a idea, both, and it’d very nicely find yourself the most costly sustainably powered off-roader at this 12 months’s Auto China present.
When Dongfeng launched the Mengshi/MHero model and its first idea vehicles in 2022, the SUVs had been met with widespread cynicism from US media, which largely dismissed them as a Hummer EV knock-offs. It is definitely onerous to disclaim the resemblance, however the Mengshi badge really shares one thing extra substantive (and above-board) with Hummer. Dongfeng spun the business model off from the identify of its longstanding line of Chinese language all-terrain navy automobiles – a few of which had been constructed atop imported Hummer H1 chassis.
Say what you’ll in regards to the M-Hero/Hummer resemblance, however the all-new two-seat M-Hunter would not seem like any Hummer we have ever seen. Actually, it would not seem like any manufacturing car we have seen – however stories out of China say that it’s certainly production-bound, and never merely a flashy design research meant to dazzle the Auto China present crowds beginning later this week.
The M-Hunter reminds us of the high-flying Brabus 900 Crawler in colour, spirit and basic uncovered roll-cageyness, but it surely seems to be even sportier since Dongfeng has higher tailored the styling cues to the brand new car’s goal.
The front-end will get compacted by a re-angled bumper design that maximizes entrance tire clearance, in addition to a smaller, extra centered grille, and sharpened headlamps. The rear follows go well with, exhibiting off some bright-red suspension arms that will usually be a minimum of partially obscured by physique and bumper work.
The manufacturing 917 is not precisely a thin, lithe piece of bodywork, however the M-Hunter seems to bulge out much more above and across the wheels, although that may simply be an impact of its fenders muscling straight out off the bones of its skeletal roll cage.
The four-wheeler is pictured and not using a windscreen and with tiny door panels that remind us a little bit of traction boards – although they do not look significantly useful for rescuing spinning tires.
What stays unknown – a minimum of for the following few days – is the powertrain lurking behind the M-Hunter’s genre-bending bodywork. The 917 provides patrons the choice of a 1,073-hp (800-kW) four-motor pure-electric drive or an 805-hp (600-kW) triple-motor e-drive with 1.5-liter turbo-four vary extender. The previous provides as much as 280 miles (450 km) of estimated vary (WLTP), whereas the range-extender boosts that distance to 466 miles (750 km).
Chinese language auto information company Gasgoo stories the M-Hunter could have extra wheel torque and floor clearance than any present Chinese language car. It additionally says it’s going to be dearer than the standard Chinese language off-road car, so we might reckon it’s going to definitely begin above the ¥697,900 (approx. US$96,330) base value of the M-Hero 917 BEV, the dearer of the 2 917 configurations.
We’ll look to be taught extra in regards to the M-Hunter when this 12 months’s Beijing Worldwide Auto Exhibition opens to the media on April 25.
Sources: Automobile Information China and Gasgoo