A SUV from MG, whatever next

MG was created by Cecil Kimber in 1924, Mr Kimber was the businesses manager for W. R. Morris’s garage in Oxford and the MG brand was a side-line for Morris. MG are the initials of Morris Garages. The company has had many changes of owners over the years, including: Morris Motors Limited, British Motor Corporation, British Leyland, Rover Group, British Aerospace, BMW, MG Rover Group, and then in 2006 the Chinese Company Nanjing Automobile Group bought the assets of the company after it went into receivership. Production restarted in 2007 in China and later at the Longbridge Plant in the UK under the current manufacturer MG Motor. The company has had quite a chequered past, plenty of ups, and just as many downs, so will the MG GS be an up or a down.

I think that this SUV from MG is probably the first of this type of vehicle in the company’s history, what would Mr Morris and Mr Kimber think about such a thing, MG with its sporting heritage, with two-seater sports cars its trademark, will they be turning in their graves.

Time moves on and any company has to produce cars for sectors that are in demand at any particular point in time, and if SUV’s are the flavour of the month at the moment, then car manufacturers have to move with the times and that is exactly what MG have done – not live in the past, but make a car that is current and a true competitor to many other good cars on the market today.

There are three trim levels in the GS line-up: Explore, Excite and Exclusive. The Explore starts from £14,995.00 and has as standard – 17’’ alloys, LED daytime running lights, air-conditioning, auto-headlights, cruise control, electrically adjustable door mirrors, stop-start and hill-hold. The Excite, which starts from £17,495.00 adds: leather steering wheel with audio controls, DAB radio, Bluetooth, auto-air-con, auto headlights, rear parking sensors with camera. The top of the range Exclusive which starts from £19495.00 has in addition to the Excite: 18-inch alloy wheels, front fog lights, leather seats, electrically adjusted front seats, navigation, cruise control, roof rails, side steps, so a good level of specification

The dimensions are: length – 4500mm, width (excluding door mirrors) 1855mm, height – 1665mm. The boot capacity is pretty good at 335-litres with the seats up, and it increased to 1336- litres with the rear seats folded down. Rear leg room is really good, with room to stretch out, very impressive for the size of car.

The GS is powered by a 1.5-litre turbo-charged petrol engine that has been developed in conjunction with General Motors. Its power output is 166ps, goes from 0-62mph in 9.9 seconds and is coupled to either a 6-speed manual, or 7-speed dual-clutch automatic.

We took the mid-range version out onto the roads around Bicester and it was surprisingly quiet and refined, quite a shock really. In the cabin there was hardly any noise at all. The cabin build quality and fit and finish was also up to a high standard. The doors and boot closed with a positive thud, no tinny-ness here. The whole car felt solid and why were we surprised - well quite simply because this car is assembled in China and we are not used to seeing many cars from China. We had a thorough look around it, trying to find faults but this proved difficult, the ash-tray lid was a bit flimsy but that was about it. A real nice touch was the metal finisher plate on all four doors ‘kick-plate’ a solid piece of metal around 14-inches long in polished silver, a small element of the car but effective and gave it a premium look, and probably quite expensive – bet the bean counters didn’t like signing this off…!!

We drove the car for around an hour on a variety of roads and the 1.5-litre engine with its turbo had more than enough power, the 6-speed manual was silky smooth. But the fuel consumption figure, according to the on-board computer was disappointing, we only managed to achieve just under 30mpg. Admittedly most of the route did involve roundabouts and traffic lights, with plenty of stop-starts, so probably not a typical journey but we did expect to get mid-30’s minimum, as the official combined figure is 46.3mpg.

This SUV from MG offers a lot for the money, it looks good, drives well, is well put together but many will be put off by the fact it is made in China, although they shouldn’t be as it is as good as many of its competitors.

Talking of competitors, these are vast, as just about every manufacturer has a car now in this sector, the Nissan Qashqai, Suzuki Vitara, Ssangyong Korando, Peugeot 2008 and Dacia Duster are all similarly sized, but the price range is vast. MG UK expect to sell around 1,000 per year and mainly to retail customers.

Would Mr Morris and Mr Kimber be happy or sad to see the day a SUV built in China carrying the MG badges in 2016? – Probably a bit of both but they were forward thinking people and they too would have agreed that you can’t stand still and you need to keep up with the times and demands of customers and if that means moving away from tradition, then so be it.

Summary Stats 

• On the road price £14,995.00 to £20,995.00
• Petrol: 1.5 TGI 166 PS
• CO2 139 to 141 g/km
• Combined MPG 45.5 to 46.3 MPG
• Gearboxes 6 Speed Manual,  7 Speed DCT

New options and features

• Rear view camera – Standard on Excite & Exclusive
• Cruise control – Standard on all
• iGo Navigation system – Standard on Exclusive
• DAB Radio –  Standard on Excite & Exclusive
• LED daytime running lights - Standard on all
• Xenon headlights - Standard on Exclusive