Worldwide SUV boom also not expected to last as Chinese car-maker vows not to get ‘lost’ like Kia
The chief designer for MG, Oleg Son, has revealed that the fast-rising Chinese car-maker has no plans to offer an all-new global dual-cab ute in the immediate future because it’s not in the brand’s “DNA”.
He also said he hoped the current SUV boom “will not survive forever”, paving the way for a return of cars that are “more compact, lower, more efficient, more aerodynamic and therefore more sexy”.
MG is part of the SAIC Motor empire, which includes a variety of brands covering all major market segments – including LDV (known as Maxus in China) with its T60 workhorse ute in Australia.
Under SAIC ownership, MG has moved away from its British sports car roots into mainstream territory, and in Australia it’s now one of the top 10 brands with segment-leading models such as the MG ZS small SUV and MG3 light hatch.
Speaking with carsales at SAIC headquarters in Shanghai, Son said the brand needs to be careful it doesn’t get lost by trying to offer too many model lines, including one of the most popular vehicle types in Australia: the ute.
MG does in fact offer a rebadged version of the Maxus T90 pick-up in Thailand, known as the MG Extender, but Son made it clear that an MG-specific global dual-cab along similar lines to the forthcoming Kia and Hyundai mid-size utes is not among the future models in his studio.
“At the moment, I have not worked on such things,” said Son, who previously worked for Kia.
“But at Kia, I did because Kia is [a] global company, the main market for Kia is America, so this is why I was working on such cars.
“For MG, to be honest [is a pick-up or ute] part of the MG DNA? I’m not so sure about that.
“I think we should be careful, because a company like Kia – I’m talking about Kia because it’s a good example – they do a very small car like the Picanto and they do the K9, which is a status sedan for businesspeople, and the range is so wide I think they got lost with so many product.
“It’s costly at the end of the day, so you have to focus on who you are and what you want to bring to the customer.
“So, we should ask a similar question to ourselves: What do we want to bring to the world? Who are we?”
That’s a good question, not least because the circa-$100,000 MG Cyberster sports car is on its way to Australia, among a host of new models that will push MG upmarket and test the strength of a brand that today is more focused on budget cars.
“It’s a good question, and we don’t have the answer yet, to be honest,” Son admitted.
“We just started to reconsider what we should do to ‘come back’. The first step was to do the Cyberster, to bring that sporty image and ‘fun to drive’ image back and it’s under construction.”
In another blow to Aussie buyers, MG’s design chief also said he hoped the current global SUV boom – which now sees the high-riding wagons as the most popular vehicle category in our market, accounting for more than 55 per cent of all new-car sales – “will not survive forever”.
Asked whether MG would ever be known as ‘an SUV brand’, Son said: “I don’t think so.
“It doesn’t mean that we’re not going to have any SUVs, but I told you, an SUV can be lower, can be very aerodynamic; there is space for different types of morphology and profile.
“My hope is that SUV will not survive forever.
“Maybe it’s going to fade away a little bit, with the cost of fuel. I think it’s not forever.
“It’s like the MPV in the ’90s, ’80s. There were lots of people who felt that MPVs were, ‘Oh, it’s nice, I love it, it’s practical, I can bring my kids’ and then one day they were fed up with that and then SUVs came in. This kind of thing could happen.
“I believe in the return of cars which are more compact, lower, more efficient, more aerodynamic and therefore more sexy, because when you [design] an SUV, it’s a box, basically.
“So, if it’s smaller, maybe you have more opportunity to come up with a nicer [shape], something more sexy,” he said.
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Keyword: MG design chief says no plans for global dual-cab ute