We thought we’ve seen it all with the Lexus LM, but apparently we were wrong. This is GAC’s all-new Trumpchi M8, and it has – without a shadow of a doubt – the largest grille we’ve ever seen on a production car.
Making its debut at the recent 2022 Guangzhou Auto Show, the second-generation seven-seater luxury MPV will be offered in two guises: a hybrid and a petrol version. But before that, we’ll have to talk about the looks.
We can already hear BMW in the distance shouting “we told you so”, but bling is indeed king over in China. The entire car is designed around a ‘star diamond shadow (translated)’ theme, with the main star of the show being the imposing front grille that looks like it’ll devour everything that comes into its path.
Dubbed the “sky-dominating wings 2.0”, the humongous grille is made up of 10 vertical chrome bars, sculpted similarly to Lexus’ spindle grille to illustrate “the peak momentum of a lion leaping Mount Everest and smashing the sky”. The Chinese certainly aren’t lacking imagination.
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The grille is accompanied by the fang-like headlights, with intricate details for the vertical daytime-running lights portion inset deep into the fascia to give the entire front end a super aggressive appearance. The same inverted L-shaped motif is also mirrored on the full-width tail lights, while the rest of the exterior is also adorned in copious amounts of chrome for the ultimate “look-at-me” factor.
In terms of size, the all-new Trumpchi M8 measures 5,212 mm long, 1,893 mm wide, and 1,823 mm tall, with a wheelbase of 3,070 mm, making it slightly bigger than the Alphard (and Lexus LM), but smaller than the Kia Carnival and Hyundai Staria.
The Trumpchi M8 is also obviously luxurious on the inside, which is the main appeal of a boss-tier MPV like this anyway. In the range-topping variant, the M8 gets a 2-2-3 seating layout with two “Qingyun” powered captain seats in the second row, which supposedly feels like sitting on clouds, and even gets integrated Yamaha Masters speakers in the headrest.
GAC says the interior design is crafted after the natural landscapes in Lingnan, China, while the seats themselves take inspiration from the Chinese opera houses. To that end, the seats can also be optioned in a unique red, black, and gold finish for added extravagance.
As for the cockpit, the driver gets a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster, paired to a massive 14.6-inch infotainment display that takes up the entire centre stack on the dashboard. Being a chauffeur doesn’t mean you’ll miss out on luxuries, too – the gear lever comprises an illuminated crystal sphere with 160 facets, which also syncs with the rest of the car’s ambient system.
The petrol-powered GAC Trumpchi M8 gets a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder mill underneath the bonnet, reportedly making 255 hp and 400 Nm of torque, while the hybrid system gets an Atkinson cycle variant of the same engine, alongside a Toyota-sourced hybrid system to make a combined output of around the 260 hp mark – the Chinese carmaker hasn’t provided detailed specifications.
Pricing for the GAC Trumpchi M8 will be revealed when the MPV goes on sale in China later this year. Now that GAC Motor has officially made its Malaysian debut, will you look to the Chinese kingpin-mobile when you’re shopping for a luxury MPV? Let us know in the comments below!
