JOHANNESBURG - Chery announced earlier this week that it would be returning to South Africa in the fourth quarter of this year, with plans to launch an entire line-up of Tiggo-badged SUVs, starting with the compact Tiggo 4 Pro.
But another interesting titbit emerged during the pre-launch press conference held in Joburg earlier this week, and it concerns an upcoming bakkie model.
One of the slides shown during the presentation showed a spread of future models, some yet to be revealed, and one of these was named ‘Tiggo PUP’, which a representative later confirmed was in fact a bakkie.
The new pick-up model is expected to be launched locally in the second quarter of 2023, but nothing else is known about the upcoming product as yet and there are currently no Tiggo pick-ups listed on the brand’s international websites.
Although it’s not impossible that Chery might be developing a traditional one-tonne bakkie to take on the GWM P-Series, the fact that it’s Tiggo badged seems to imply that it could be based on one of the brand’s unibody SUVs. If that’s the case then it would be something akin to the Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz unibody double cab bakkies, and given that neither of these are planned for South Africa at this stage, Chery could have a potentially lucrative (albeit unproven) niche all to itself.
Before the bakkie comes, however, Chery will launch four SUV products on our market, starting with the compact Tiggo 4 Pro later this year. Early 2022 will see the introduction of a premium seven-seater called the Tiggo 8 Pro, while the mid-sized Tiggo 7 Pro will follow in the second quarter. 2022 will also see the introduction of the yet-to-be-revealed Tiggo Cross.
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Chery will launch with 30 dealers later this year, with plans to expand on that in future, and the company has also established a “large” parts warehouse.