Imagine the launch of a fictitious new car. It’s a luxurious-feeling two-seat roadster, an electric vehicle with two motors generating a total output of 503bhp.
It has an electrically operated folding hood, styling so radical that it appears to be almost sculpted like a Lotus Evija at the rear and the most spectacular pair of remote electrically operated scissor doors.
It looks a million dollars, then – and it goes like it: it is extraordinarily fast, this four-wheel drive, open-top, grand touring sports car, able to go to 62mph from a standstill in just 3.2sec.
And yet it costs under £60,000, fully loaded: some fancy colours aside, all of its generous roster of equipment is included in the basic price. Who would you think might produce such a car?
These days, most car makers don’t make any sports models at all; others think they must have internal combustion engines. Surely it would take someone with performance experience, big heritage and a vast model array.
Who, in today’s market, would be that bold? If, 15 years ago, when the unimpressive MG 6 was launched, you had said it would be MG, I don’t think you would have been taken very seriously.
Even four or five years ago, when MG’s products were all stolid, uneventful, uninspiring to look at, low-priced value products, would you have predicted this?
In fact, even when there’s one parked outside the office, I’m not sure I entirely believe it. And yet MG has not just thought about it, made a design study or mulled it over: you can go and order one, right now.
The MG Cyberster isn’t the core vehicle in the MG range, but it epitomises just how far this manufacturer has come. It has been nearly two decades since SAIC took over the defunct MG brand, seeking a name that was recognisable to Western consumers and managing it carefully (some customers think it is still a British brand).
It has a design and engineering hub in the Midlands, but the core work, and the manufacturing, is performed in China.
But it’s that blend – a name we recognise and some European influence on design and driving character, but with the cost advantages of Chinese ownership and manufacture – that has been behind the meteoric rise in MG’s popularity.
You could point to the sales growth of the company around the start of the decade, establishing MG as one of the UK’s top 10 manufacturers, as a reason alone to make it our Best Manufacturer.