Day One: Into the Dunes

The morning starts just outside Pinnaroo with a serious chill in the air and a thick blanket of fog over the paddocks. Before the convoy leaves the highway behind, preparation comes first. The Tank 300 Hi4-T is hugely capable straight off the showroom floor, but remote-area driving rewards the prepared: recovery gear, traction boards, snatch straps and aired-down tyres. The only change from showroom spec is a set of all-terrain tyres for the conditions ahead.

"Come prepared," says GWM Product Planning Manager, Tim Leong. "Recovery gear, traction boards, snatch straps. You never know what conditions you'll find."

Then the bitumen runs out. Wide gravel roads narrow into winding, sandy tracks lined with native scrub as far as you can see, and it's immediately obvious why this place has become a pilgrimage for four wheel drivers. It's also where the Hi4-T argument gets real. Soft sand punishes engines that need revs to make torque; the Tank 300 Hi4-T's electric motor answers instantly, feeding 300kW and 750Nm through a proper mechanical four wheel drive with low range and front and rear locking differentials.

Lunch, Powered By The Car

Lunch isn't a cold sandwich beside the track. The Tank's 37.1kWh battery holds nearly twice what a typical four-person household uses in a day, so it becomes the campsite: a 2.2kW outlet in the boot running the fridge, and up to 6kW through Vehicle to Load running the electric bbq and coffee machine. Burgers sizzling, a screen streaming under the open sky, and not a generator in earshot.

Big Dune

Photos never capture the scale. Standing at the bottom of Big Dune looking skyward, you understand why this climb is a rite of passage. There's more than one way up, every line is deep, loose sand, and the team walks it first, reading the surface and working out where momentum matters most. Then the Tank 300 Hi4-T charges. Instant response from the electric motor, traction from the mechanical hardware, and Big Desert opens up beneath us: an uninterrupted panorama of dunes and bushland that goes on forever.

Panda Hill

The day ends on a tighter, trickier climb. Panda Hill's approach is narrow and the track changes with every visit, which suits the Tank 300's compact footprint and instant throttle response. Waiting at the summit is the payoff: the sun dropping, the dunes glowing gold, and Big Desert stretching out in every direction. The kind of view that makes everyone go quiet. Explore the beauty of our country in person, Be More Tank.

The same Tank 300 Hi4-T that mastered the Big Desert is waiting at your local GWM dealer.

Day Two: Chasing Mud

Day one belonged to the dunes; day two has a different objective. The Border Track's reputation is built on mud: deep ruts, vehicle-swallowing bog holes and conditions that change with every visit. That's what we came expecting, and the morning starts promisingly, a few muddy sections hinting at what's ahead. Then the track calls the bluff. The further south we push, the more the bog holes give way to sand. More sand. And then even more sand, every crest revealing another stretch of soft, flowing track weaving through the scrub.

"In places like this, it's always going to change," Tim says. "You might come today and it's one condition, but a week, a month or a year later it might all change. Like today, it's just started to rain. If it bucketed down, the terrain would be drastically different."

When the Weather Turns

Those words don't take long to prove prophetic. By lunch we've made peace with the idea that the Border Track isn't giving up its mud this trip, so we pull into camp and put Vehicle to Load back to work: sausages sizzling, fire crackling, a good day out in the wild even without the prize. Then the sky goes dark in an instant and the rain buckets down, cameras covered, gear thrown into trays, everyone scrambling. Even out here, the desert can change its mind in a heartbeat.

Finally, Mud

It looks like we're heading home without the challenge we came for. Then, not far from the exit, the sand suddenly gives way to deep, sticky mud holes full of water. This is where everything under the Tank 300 Hi4-T works as one: body-on-frame chassis, mechanical four wheel drive, low range and locking differentials doing the traditional work, while the instant response of the hybrid system makes holding momentum almost too easy. In conditions like these, Hi4-T feels like a cheat code. We roll out with mud on every panel, a well-splashed camera crew, and one very busy car wash waiting in town. Sometimes the best challenges save themselves until last.

The same Tank 300 Hi4-T that mastered the Big Desert is waiting at your local GWM dealer.