Things Took a Left Turn When I Joined Jetour At Its KZN Festival

That headline might be a little dramatic because things took a left turn for the better when Jetour invited me to join them at the Jetour KZN festival a week ago. The festival, from how I understand it, is Jetour’s way of giving thanks to their customers for the support over the years by affording them a fun filled family friendly experience.

Not only is the day all about out-in-the-sun fun, music and food, it also affords customers the chance to interact with the people behind the brand and experience some of the latest products, some that are yet to come and even see Jetour’s full customization powers in play. It really is a unique experience for customers.

While the festival was our main reason for the invitation, Jetour has some cheeky plans up their sleeve. I was part of the media and content creators cohort joining them from Johannesburg.

So they flew us in on the early hours to Durban, where we made our way to Zimbali for all the check-in formalities. Once all of that was handled, we were given the keys to the brand new Jetour Dashing and X70 Plus models to experience. For the duration of the day, I grabbed my picnic basket, the route card, my driving partner Gugu and we settled in a Dashing.

At first look new Dashing doesn’t look like much has changed, until you get to the rear and notice the imposing quad exhaust pipe setup. And unlike the X70 Plus of yesteryear, the pipes on this refreshed Dashing have clear exhaust pipes visible, which is a welcomed affair.

Little can be noted from a noise perspective. Fortunately for us Jetour had their product specialist on hand, who graciously gave us a walk-around of the vehicle and pointed out a few other updates to the exterior.

In front, you now get distinctive red styling accents on the front nose and flanks and it features parking sensors in front too that enable Level 2 ADAS, Intelligent High and Low beams, a 540-degree panoramic view camera system.

There’s a host of new paint colour choices for the Dashing to choose from such as Onyx Black, Slate Grey, Forest Green, Ash Grey, Crimson Red and Glacier White.

When you step inside, the Dashing now features an eight-speaker Sony audio system, privacy glass, dual-zone climate control, a panoramic glass sunroof and heated and ventilated seats on the Prime version we experienced.

The X70 Plus also receives noticeable improvements including, a redesigned front grille with exterior accents in brushed aluminium, new 19-inch alloy wheels, heated and ventilated front seats (on the Prime version), dual-zone climate control and engine start/stop technologies. And the same advanced safety enhancements as the new Dashing.

Now that we’ve got all the good stuff out of the way, Jetour planned for us to explore a bit of Durban coastal living before we make our way to the main event. Once we settled into our vehicles, we made our way to The Pearls Mall in Umhlanga for sightseeing (fellow content creators appreciated this), followed by a Coffee stop at Plato.

We skipped the coffee stop part as we wanted to capture content with the vehicles, and then we made our way to the event venue, The Manor House. The long stretch from Umhlanga to the event venue allowed us to get a proper feel of the updated 1.5-litre turbocharged petrol engine mated to a 7-speed dual-clutch transmission that delivers 125kW and 270Nm of torque.

According to Jetour, the new engine is engineered to be far more responsive, result in stronger performance, improved efficiency and a more refined driving experience. During our time the drive was certainly more refined, and a tad responsive. But some of the nuances when parking or maneuvering at incredibly low speeds that came through in the previous iteration were still there. We’ll have to see how it does when we have it for longer.

The left turn out of all of this was the good news of the new product introductions and the fact that pricing for each model is about R10 000 cheaper than the pre-improvement versions.

Once we reached the event venue we submerged ourselves in the Jetour experience. Jetour took the opportunity to introduce the very same models we were sampling today to their customers and dealers. This was followed up by a reveal of a few custom models that Jetour has spent some considerable time customizing. On display and at work was the two i-DM models, the T1 and T2 PHEVs.

The T1 PHEV caught my attention as it was powering a coffee machine that was on service for the day. This perfectly showcased the V2L technology of the vehicle and what it can do.

The music was incredible, the hospitality for the books and food was pure festival goodness.

The Jetour Dashing is priced from R429 900.

The Jetour X70Plus is priced from R444 900

Post Views: 0

#Jetour #Jetour Dashing #Jetour T1 #Jetour T2 #Jetour X70 Plus

Posted By

Papi Mabele

Papi Mabele has a marketing background, he is a digital marketing expert with extensive experience in launching and building global brands in the emerging markets. Papi is also an avid tech writer, enthusiast and all round tech junkie. As a freelance writer and analyst he has been numerously published in Popular Mechanics (SA), GQ South Africa, Premier Magazine, Driven Magazine, Bloem News, Courant, The Weekly, Enthooze Magazine and PiE magazine amongst others.