MG3 Hybrid + competitive, endearing and huge fun

When Chinese automotive maker SAIC took over what remained of the Rover Group there were a lot of very unhappy Rover and MG enthusiasts.

It’s fair to say that MG today looks nothing like it did when SAIC took it over, and began to resurrect a car company from what remained of Rover. Much of the criticism was unfair because SAIC were never going to replicate the Rover and MG of old, it wouldn’t have been profitable for starters!

Among the reborn MG models that emerged at that time the little MG3 was much underrated, despite being rather old tech it had character, lots of equipment and was cheap. The MG3 soldiered on longer than any of those initial models with only a minor facelift during that time. Now there is a very new and much more modern MG3 Hybrid + and it’s a delight.

Priced from €21,805/£18,495 it retains a 1.5-litre, 4-cylinder power unit but works with a 100kw electric motor and 1.83kwh battery mated to a 3-speed automatic gearbox. It’s unusual in that the electric motor leads, rather than the more usual set-up of the petrol engine leading. This means the MG3 has exceptionally good performance with the benchmark 62mph passed in just 8 seconds. On the road it’s huge fun and responds more like a pure electric than a hybrid.

The fun continues with superb ride comfort that offers enough resistance to make twisting cross country roads fun. I suspect a lot of this is down to a UK based team who tune the suspension on UK MGs to our roads.

Standard fare is excellent, on the lead-in SE version it includes navigation, adaptive cruise control, automatic air conditioning, rear parking camera and 6-speaker DAB audio system. The higher spec Trophy ups the specification to include heated front seats and steering wheel, keyless entry and start, rain sensor, auto lights and privacy glass.

The interior is a comfortable place to be and despite rather a lot of bargain basement plastics it still feels well bolted together.  The driver instrument screen is too busy for such a small screen and the steering wheel would benefit from reach as well as height adjustment.

Over its predecessor the new model has impressively reduced Co2 emissions from 147 g/km to just 100 g/km and similarly fuel consumption from 6.57l per 100km/43 mpg to 4.4l per 100km/64 mpg. It has always been an endearing car and now has become a very competitive and endearing car.