First Drive: MG 3

It's been a long time since MG produced a sports car (the last was the TF, which went out of production seven years ago) though it's still making saloons and SUVs under its current owners, SAIC (Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation), which is China's largest car maker. State owned and controlled, last year it produced seven million cars with a turnover of $29billion. It has joint ventures with Volkswagen and General Motors, and also owns MG and Roewe, which was formed partly out of the old Rover marque and is one of China's only luxury-car marques.

SAIC makes five separate MG models and we get three of them: two sports utility vehicles, the GS and ZS and this, the MG 3, which is a B-segment four-door hatchback competing in one of the most competitive markets in Europe. It was first launched in the far east in 2011, but MG3 has been on sale in the UK since 2013. Initially well received, it handled well and was well priced, but it looked old fashioned and the cabin and equipment levels were low. It's not pulled up many trees since so the company has revised and revamped the model and is relaunching it, along with ambitious plans to increase its patchy dealer network. Prices start at £9,495, rising to £12,795 for the top model tested here.

Only the doors, sills and roof have been retained and the result appears as a more modern vehicle altogether, though it still sits quite high. The cabin retains the old model's spaciousness, with plenty of room in the rear seats and a not-insubstantial load space of 285 litres if you use the spare-wheel well as storage and 1,262 litres with the rear seat backs folded, though since they fold onto the squabs, the load bed has a big step.

The seats are comfortable, but squishy, and there's an all new facia with a bewildering array of surfaces and materials. It seems well put together, though and while the simple facia might not have the most modern gadgets, it's clear and easy to use. There's a centre touch screen, but that's really just a digital display for the audio system; no sat nav is offered, although there is a USB charge slot in the front. All models except the entry level get a DAB radio, and the mid-level 3Form gets air con, cruise control, Bluetooth, and steering-wheel audio controls. The 3Style+ is predicted to be the top model and adds special 16-inch wheels, automatic lamps and wipers, reverse parking sensors, electric mirrors and leather seats. 

Safety equipment consists of twin front, side and curtain airbags, electronic stability control, corner brake control, electronic hill hold and traction control, though there are no radar-and-camera-based safety systems such as autonomous braking, or pedestrian recognition.

The four-cylinder 16-valve, chain-cam engine needs revving, but it pulls quite well even if performance is modest, with 0-62mph in 10.8 seconds and a top speed of 108mph. The little lump gets quite raucous after 4,000rpm, although it's not an unpleasant noise. Gear-change quality is nothing special, but the ratios are reasonably spaced, until you get to fifth that is, where you find the engine spinning at over 3,000rpm at 70mph and no sixth to take the pressure off. Combined fuel consumption is quoted at 48.7mpg, but MG seemed unsure whether that was under the more realistic WLTP test proceedure; either way it's not outstanding.

There's not been too much done to the suspension, which consists of the class standard of MacPherson strut front and a twist-beam rear. The ride is on the firm side, but it's a well-balanced little car, with little side-to-side head tossing and plenty of longitudinal compliance over sleeping policemen. The 16-inch Goodyear tyres are noisy though.

And like the previous MG3 the handling is great fun, with accurate responses to the major controls, good damping control, little body roll and terrific feedback from the old-school hydraulically power-assisted steering. It's almost as though the UK engineering team which came up with this suspension set up haven't forgotten the old MG values. The brakes, too, despite being a low-tech front disc/rear drum set up, are powerful and well balanced, though at 1.15 tonnes, the MG3 is light enough not to need more sophisticated anchors.

"We don't want to be the cheapest in the market, someone else can do that," says Daniel Gregoriuus, MG's new head of marketing. "What we want to be is the best value package on the market."

For rivals see Renault's Dacia Sandero, which undercuts the MG3 by almost £3,500, though the base models are like a nuclear winter inside. What MG brings to this cheap and cheerful end of the market is a seven-year warranty, an attractive demeanor especially on the outside, reasonable performance and scintillating handling. It would be nice to see camera-based safety systems as options, but it's still quite an attractive little thing.