As a car company with strong strength in the commercial field, Foton rarely dabbles in family car products, in addition to the pioneer and the great general series that have emerged due to the wave of comprehensive pickup trucks, it is difficult to think of other models that are purely for family users at the first time.
However, as the passenger pickup products become more and more mature, the consumer environment also gradually tends to be entertainment attributes, but also let Foton have the desire to explore a larger field, so the Great General SUV derived from the Great General G9 pickup platform came into being, which is also a new attempt by Futian in the field of pure family models. For various reasons, Foton did not push it to full mass production, but only tested a engineering prototype and gave it a bicycle certification, which made our test drive a model the only "lone book" in the world.
Born out of the change and invariance of pickup trucks
In fact, for the General G9 this car we are not unfamiliar, it as Futian's P3 pickup platform has been sold to the market for a period of time, we have also test-driven its various versions, various stages of the product test driving experience, interested in the small partner can click on the following link to review the previous content, here on the General SUV similar content will no longer be repeated one by one.
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In fact, as a model from the same platform as the pickup version of the General, the Great General SUV uses the same configuration as the pickup version in most places, including the interior style, the T-LINK system supporting 4G Internet and the AI intelligent voice interaction system, the 2.0T gasoline engine, the ZF 8AT gearbox, the BorgWarner timely four-wheel drive system and the non-load-bearing body, etc., but as a product defined in the SUV, Its biggest highlight is the huge trunk that was converted from the General G9 pickup truck bucket.
Although it looks like a hard top shell on the pickup truck bucket in appearance, just like the modified high cover that many pickup truck owners are keen on at the moment, the General SUV is obviously different from it in structure. Unlike the pickup truck high cover that is later installed on the bucket by means of hinges and other methods, the trunk of the Great General SUV is integrated with the entire non-load body at the time of production, forming a closed interior space like the conventional household SUV, and the opening method of the trunk door is also changed from the bottom fold of the pickup truck to the common flip-up type of the SUV.
At the same time, the middle of the cockpit and the trunk of the General SUV is provided with a partition that can be folded up and down, which isolates the crew area and the loading area, and when necessary, the partition can be fixed and opened through the hook of the trunk, thus forming a penetrating space, which is convenient for the occupants to pick up items in the trunk at any time.
You can also fold the rear seats to get an extra-long through space of more than 2.4 meters, which can be used to enlarge volumetric items, or place a magic box on the trunk floor to level the height of the front and rear to harvest a large-sized mobile trolley to support the outdoor adventure you want to go.
Full-size SUV huge chunky stool and inconvenience
The length of the original General G9 pickup truck has reached 5340mm, which is more than the data of the full-size SUV. On this basis, the General SUV has increased the height of the car from the original 1920mm to 2105mm because of the trunk, exceeding the height of more than two meters so that it is somewhat prohibitive in many basements, culverts and other places with a height limit of 2 meters.
Indeed, not only the General SUV, but also various other full-size SUVs such as the Navigator, The Careyd and even the Like, are not particularly friendly in the large urban roads, unless you are perennially outside the five-six-seven-eight rings, away from the crowded steel torrent.
But in addition to the loss of flexibility caused by the large size, the General SUV gives an indelible impression in terms of spatial performance. As a small passenger car, it means that it can be exempted from the restrictions on the entry of trucks in many cities, in addition to the tail number restrictions, free access to the city center, so that for the self-employed owner of the business can bring great convenience, in the case of not putting down the rear seat, the general SUV can bring 2300L of loading space, which is still very abundant for a vehicle that can freely enter and exit the city center.
At the same time, the driving vision that the tall body can bring is far beyond the conventional family car, and the feeling of comfort on the high is almost the highest existence on the highway except for the construction machinery known as the "driving building".
The driving experience of transitioning from a van to a bus
As a model that shares the chassis with the Grand General G9, the Grand General SUV does not bring any additional new feeling in terms of driving experience except for the closed trunk. The same is the power combination of 2.0T+8AT, the same is BorgWarner's timely four-wheel drive system, the same is the non-load-bearing body, and the same is the shock absorber combination of the front double wishbone and the rear leaf spring.
Like many cars with hardcore adventure as the selling point, the overall driving texture of the General SUV is different from the performance model, giving people a soft, smooth handling feedback. At the same time, because the load on the rear axle is larger than the pickup truck version, even if it adopts leaf spring suspension, it does not have the bouncing feeling when the pickup truck version is unloaded, so that the driving texture is closer to the feeling of the family car.
And after adding the trunk and the middle spacer, the NVH performance of the Admiral SUV is more quiet than the pickup version.
The clichéd question: What's worth buying it?
As a "small bus" that needs to occupy the purchase limit index, the General SUV is a bit of a chicken rib for many people, and even Futian himself has a cautious attitude towards it, and only built a real car for run-in exploration. This inevitably makes people wonder: such an oversized hardcore SUV, what group and environment is suitable for?
In fact, before getting the real car, I also had the same questions, and I didn't even have a little idea of choosing a topic in my mind. But after actually feeling its various abilities, I have at least two directions of understanding it.
The first is to target the transportation needs of cities with truck restriction policies, such as living in places such as Beijing that restrict pickup trucks from entering central urban areas, but have a just-need for small-scale transportation in the city. For example, wholesale traders, such as individual bosses, such as entrepreneurs, etc., through the occupation of household car indicators, to obtain a means of transport with a transportation capacity that is not inferior to that of conventional vans.
The second is for consumer groups with pure entertainment needs, such as outdoor adventure, long-distance self-driving and other purposes. Thanks to the closed, transparent and large interior space, you can diversify the interior of the General SUV, whether it is a heavy transport vehicle for the fleet or a bed car when driving a bicycle, you can get a good solution. And the strong passing ability derived from the pickup truck chassis, as well as the off-road support under the timely four-wheel drive blessing of BorgWarner, can make the General SUV have stronger self-confidence when traveling outdoors, which is something that many MiniVans that are used to modify bed cars cannot provide.
On the other hand, it's probably the cheapest 4WD, non-body-carrying full-size SUV you can buy on the market. Although the General SUV has not yet been priced, according to the pickup version of the Great General G9, the top match is only about 220,000 yuan, and the Most Expensive General SUV is only about 250,000 yuan. In contrast, the cheapest full-size SUV in the domestic market at present: the BJ90, its starting price is also approaching the million mark.
However, in addition to the above, there is another most interesting question, that is, in the city of unlimited traffic and unlimited purchase, is it suitable for an SUV with a small bus attribute, or is it more convenient for a pickup truck with a minivan attribute to be equipped with a high cover?