The opening of this year’s Festival of Speed saw the Duke of Richmond leading a unique parade of old and new MGs past Goodwood House and then up the famous hill climb, celebrating the 100-year anniversary of SAIC’s venerable MG brand.

The combination of past and future continued on the MG stand where the brand’s dynamic future was showcased with the global debut unveiling of the MG Cyber GTS Concept. The concept vehicle pays homage to the MGC GTS Sebring, exploring the future of MG and for a GTS model in the EV era.

Frankie Youd spoke with David Allison, head of product and planning, MG Motor UK, to learn more about the MG vehicles on display and to discuss the public’s reaction to the MG Cyber GTS concept.

Frankie Youd (FY): MG is celebrating 100 years this year, what can people see at the MG stand?

David Allison (DA): It’s a homage for the 100 years. We have the central feature partnership this year in front of Goodwood House as well. So, what we have here on this wall is one of the cars that the design team in London have been working on as part of that celebration. This is a homage to the MG experimental land speed record.

This is pure dream, it doesn’t run; it’s purely there as a conecptual model. It has an extremely low drag coefficient of 0.181. That’s the homage to the MG EXE181 of 1957.

We then turn our attention to this one here. This is again something that we’re showing here for the first time. It was unveiled by the Duke yesterday – this is the MG Cyber GTS. This is a concept car, but effectively it is a hard-top, coupe version of the MG Cyberster roadster. Effectively, it’s a Cyberster underneath with the platform, but with a coupe and a 2+2 body style on the outside. We brought it here, to show it for the first time and public reaction has been amazing.

It’s been a very positive reaction to the MG Cyber GTS then?

Yes. I’ve read as many articles as I could find and I read all the comments; I read what people say. They say, it’s absolutely fabulous.

I suppose the nice, but rather difficult thing for me, is trying to convince people that it’s not a real car. People are trying to open the doors and you tell them that it is made out of clay, it doesn’t actually open! You could almost think you’d be able to sit in it and drive it away.

What other vehicles are on the stand?

This is a car that we unveiled for the first time yesterday. This is the all-new HS. This is replacing our bestselling car at the moment, which is also called HS, but this is completely brand new in terms of the platform, the styling, the engine, the transmission and the interior.

With the interior we’re adopting a dual 12.3 inch screen and it is much more technologically up to date than the existing car.

There are improvements pretty much all over the vehicle. The petrol version will be on sale in the showrooms at the end of July. The plug-in hybrid version we’re adopting has a very big 24.7 kilowatt hour battery, which gives an all-electric range of 75 miles which, for the price, there’s nothing that can get close to it. There’s nothing comparable at the moment, you’d have to spend a lot more money to get that level of range; you’d probably have to spend £70,000 to £80,000. This is going to be a really interesting option for us.

MG Cyberster

We showed this here last year for the first time; it’s now in production and has been on sale since April this year. We’ve already had customer orders placed. Those customer orders will be delivered, hopefully, by the end of next month.

It’s available in two versions; this one here is the GTS version with two motors, 375 kilowatts which is about 503 brake horsepower, it does 0-60mph in 3.2 seconds, and everyone loves it.

You could look at it – you wouldn’t think that that was electric.

It’s very classically proportioned. The whole idea of it was to design a roadster with an electric motor and battery, but classically styled. You have a very central cockpit, this very long nose and it’s very different to most EVs. With most EVs you tend to have short noses, big cabins, to get all that interior space in there, but not really with this car. You could look at it – you wouldn’t think that that was electric.

This was designed in the London studio – so this car has a lot of British influence. It is exciting and exhilarating to drive, it just happens to be an electric car! It proves and goes to show that electric cars can be enjoyed.

MG4 Xpower EV

This was shown at Goodwood for the first-time last year. The platform that this car sits on is quite closely related to the platform that the Cyberster sits on.

This is the high-performance version. It is a dual motor, front and rear motor, 330 kilowatts, so about 429 brake horsepower, 0 to 60 in 3.8 seconds. So again, that is very quick, even if it doesn’t look it! It’s a quintessential stealth car that looks great.

Last year we sold about 22,000 and it was the UK’s second best-selling electric car. It was UK car of the year last year. It’s got about 35 awards and that car has just been a fantastic vehicle for the brand.

MG3

This was a car that went on sale in April, so it is still very new. A lot of people might not have seen this before. We took the decision with MG3 to go down the hybrid route. This is a petrol engine car; it also has a 1.03-kilowatt hour battery providing electrical assistance. The MG3 can go fully electric for city driving, which sets it apart from many other hybrid superminis. For longer journeys, there is the reassurance of a 1.5-litre petrol engine. There’s a drive and charge system that allows the petrol engine to drive the wheels whilst also charging the battery through the generator.

If you’re city-based and you’re running around the city doing lots of stop start driving, you’ll do more of that in electric than you would in something comparable. Which means economy and efficiency figures are really good.

How far can the car travel in electric-only mode?

There is no quoted electric-only range because you cannot “force” the car into electric mode.

It will decide when it drives in electric mode based on a number of conditions, namely the state of charge in the battery and the type of driving its doing. One of the main benefits of fitting a large battery is that it should remain in EV mode more of the time, making for a more efficient and more EV experience especially in town driving.

Do you think the public’s reaction to EVs has changed from last year’s festival?

I think the general perception is that EVs are characterless and soulless. They get you from A to B in the most efficient and quietest way possible. However, to me, there are so many combustion engine cars that do that.

I think at next year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed we will have four completely different cars on the stand – I don’t see why not!

I’ve been saying to people over the last couple of days, if we were in this position two years ago, none of these cars were on sale. When you consider how quickly the brand has moved forward in such a short space of time, you wonder where we’re going to be in another two years. I think at next year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed we will have four completely different cars on the stand – I don’t see why not!

What does MG have driving on the track during the festival?

We are running in the ‘First Glance’ category; there is a road running version of the Cyber GTS, which makes my life much harder when people say: “It is a concept car, but we just saw one drive up the hill?”

There is an HS going up the hill, and the Cyberster is going up the hill as well.