We're drenching a Haval H5 in mud. Why use a UAZ when you have a Haval?! A Chinese SUV with a Lan...
Good news for all fans of true body-on-frame SUVs: the Great Wall Hover H5 has returned to the Russian market in a new guise.
This rather turbulent SUV's passport bears more than one Russian registration stamp. After all, the Great Wall Hover H5, essentially the same Haval H5 but with a different face, had been assembled in our country since 2008 – first at a plant in Gzhel and then at a facility near Lipetsk. However, after Great Wall decided to establish an independent business in Russia, this plant disappeared along with its owner, IRITO, a distributor for the Chinese automaker. Thus, Russians lost a popular SUV that had provided strong competition to the UAZ and effectively paved the way for other Chinese products to enter the Russian market. In 2016, China Automarket, a company created from the remains of the Irito, resumed production of this SUV at the Stavropol-Auto plant under the DW brand and the Hower name (yes, with a W). However, a couple of years later, this project also failed...
And now, finally, on the third attempt, the H5 has returned to the Russian market – this time under the wing of its parent company, Great Wall, which has established full-cycle production at a plant near Tula. So, this is a long-term commitment.