Following last year’s strong performance and category success, GWM has returned to the 2026 Taklimakan Rally. It marks the Baoding-based company’s expansion into global rally-raid competition and its factory-backed motorsport program.

For this year’s Taklimakan Rally, GWM is fielding the Tank 700 Hi4-T, Tank 300 Hi4-T, and Tank 500 Hi4-Z. The company will be using the Taklimakan Rally as environment to test durability, efficiency, and systems integration under extreme conditions of their models – mirroring what brands like Subaru and Mitsubishi done in the past. Even till this day, Toyota adapts its learnings from WRC to develop and improve its Gazoo Racing line-up of performance cars. While GWM may not have a performance arm like the Japs, their learnings from motorsport will eventually trickle down to mainstream models.

The 2026 Taklimakan Rally will feature seven campsites and 15 stages, with roughly 4,200 km of timed special stages. Furthermore, this rally pushes drivers through a wide range of terrain, including vast deserts, Gobi landscapes, and Yardang formations.

All-in-all, the Taklimakan Rally covers an extreme route that covers almost 8,000 km across Xinjiang, China. GWM also mentioned that they will enter the 2027 Dakar Rally.