With electric motor

Wow, what a coupé! MG’s next emotional card

(Bild: MG/marcuswerner.com)

Not completely surprisingly, but unexpectedly at this point, the British SAIC subsidiary MG is pulling a rabbit out of the hat. The eagerly awaited electric roadster "Cyberster", which is currently being launched on the market, will be joined by a sports coupé as a sister model.

All that was announced was another look at the EXE 181 experimental vehicle, but then MG head of design Jozef Kaban pulled the sheet off a small sports car that seems perfectly capable of reviving this languishing genre. The MG GTS is purely electric, but doesn't look like it at all. The British and probably also the company headquarters in Shanghai are still hesitant, but it no longer seems to be a question of "if", but only "when" production will start.

At the presentation of the GTS, chief designer Jozef Kaban goes into raptures. Born in 1991, the Slovakian, former chief designer at BMW, Rolls Royce, Skoda and Volkswagen Passenger Cars, took over the position at MG in April of this year. It is his firstborn, so to speak. "Even if we have to clean it again, touch the car, touch it to feel the lines," enthuses Kaban. And, looking at the side view: "The car seems to duck a little, like a cat before a leap." The GTS is more or less a birthday present for the 100th anniversary of Morris Garages, which was founded by William Morris in 1924. Behind the scenes, General Manager Cecil Kimber was already working on building sportier and faster cars than the company founder actually had in mind.

(Bild: MG/marcuswerner.com)

(Bild: MG/marcuswerner.com)

(Bild: MG/marcuswerner.com)

(Bild: MG/marcuswerner.com)

The MG Cyberster, the first ever all-electric roadster, provided the basis for the new sports coupé. Although the MG Cyber GTS sports coupé is still formally called "Concept" by its middle name, it is actually ready for series production. Instead of the folding roof, the GTS has two emergency seats, otherwise the body is the same as the roadster up to the waistline. Above this, a well-shaped coupé roof relaxes and gently tapers towards the slightly spoilered rear. The absence of the folding roof of the Roadster allows children to be transported.

It was not possible to see how the interior of the car is actually fitted out in the design studio, but it does not take too much imagination to imagine the high-quality and modern interior of the Roadster under a fixed roof. In any case, the technology under the sheet metal will largely correspond to that of the Cyberster, including the scissor doors, the operation of which is a spectacle for the inclined public and one of those completely irrational moments in a driver's life for which it is worth spending a little more money.

The drive system comes from the Cyberster and, like there, is powered by a 77 kWh battery. The rear-wheel drive model delivers 231 kW/314 hp, while the all-wheel drive model has 400 kW/544 hp and 725 Nm in the brochure. This means that the standard sprint should only take 3.0 seconds, with the speed limit set at 200 km/h.

It has not yet been decided when the GTS will go on sale. But there are already wishes: Carl Gotham, Director SAIC Design Advanced London, thinks it would be a good idea to make the European market happy in the middle of next year. This is because the MG B GT - the fixed-roof version of the company's legendary MG B from 1962 - was launched on the market in 1965. "That would be a good date," says Gotham. And a fitting 60th birthday present. The prices have not yet been set either - they have yet to be decided in Shanghai. They are likely to end up in the region of the Cyberster, which will be available with rear-wheel drive for around 50,000 euros.