News : MG5 Sedan breaks cover before launch

Keith Adams

MG5 - Car News China (1)

The second model in the MG5 range appears to have broken cover before its official launch in China later this year. The new car, whose pictures have been published by Car News China, will initially be powered by the 1.5-litre NSE engine in naturally aspirated and turbocharged form, but has not yet been confirmed for the UK as the business continues to find its feet here.

The new car has been styled by ex-Austin Rover designer, Stephen Harper, and Nigel Ratcliffe from an original theme penned in Longbridge and is a clear attempt to muscle in on the C/D-Segment four-door coupe market, which is booming in MG’s home market, China. Despite appearances to the contrary, the MG5 Sedan does not have a hatchback rear end and is dimensionally smaller than the MG6.

Further additions to the MG5 Sedan range will be added – including a new top-of-the-range model that is powered by the SAIC-developed 2.0-litre engine – again in turbocharged and naturally-aspirated versions. A new Volkswagen DSG-style gearbox will also find its way into the MG5.

The styling is a bold departure from the rather frumpy-bottomed MG5 hatchback, with the front-end styling cementing a new, more aggressive MG family look. The MG6 is shortly to be announced in facelifted form and will also receive the new front-end styling. MG Motor UK has not confirmed whether the MG5 or facelifted MG6 will be sold in the UK – only confirming that a new small crossover, heavily influenced by the MG CS Concept will come here in 2016.

MG5 - Car News China (2) MG5 - Car News China (3) MG5 - Car News China (4)

 

Keith Adams

58 Comments

  1. Whatever have they done to the Boot!
    Not the best SAIC have come up with….. just dreadful.
    Whatever are they thinking.

    • To be fair, most modern saloons are uglier/poorer-proportioned than a Proton GEN-2/Persona.
      Think they were trying to emulate the gawky but upmarket 3-Series. Not a bad effort at the front, but what a disaster at the rear…

  2. looks OK from the front but I don’t like the ‘kicked up’ rear styling. Put a UK size number plate on it and it will look even worse. MG is Chinese, UK styling? No, it’s not a eurobox at all!

  3. It will be shame if we in the UK do not get this car as whilst the MG3 has made a good start, the small band of British MG dealers need a lot more than just the MG3 and a handful of MG6s to sell if they are going to thrive. The MG5 with a two litre turbo could almost pass for a modern day incarnation of the MG Maestro Turbo. Frankly more new metal cannot come soon enough – soime tweaks of the MG3, something to sit above it, a facelifted MG6, the all-new SUV and, as the icing on the cake, a new sports car (the latter will be something they should do properly or not at all).

  4. From the front it’s a Toyota Tippex, no, wait, it’s a Nissan nutcracker, no, no, it’s a Hyundai Hair Dryer, no, maybe it’s a Proton Potato Peeler. Hang, on, from the back it’s a Seat Toilet Brush, sorry I mean Toledo

    Bland, anodyne, boring. Mini-cab fodder in 6 months.

  5. “Further additions to the MG5 Sedan range will be added – including a new top-of-the-range model that is powered by the SAIC-developed 2.0-litre engine – again in turbocharged and naturally-aspirated versions. A new Volkswagen DSG-style gearbox will also find its way into the MG5.”

    Now that sounds very interesting indeed…

    For me it looks quite dumpy in the real pics but actually pretty neat in the CAD IP drawings. Could well be that the lighter colour and bigger rims make a lot of difference. Interesting that this comes about now as it seems the small saloon market is heading out of the doldrums. Prestige efforts like the A3 Saloon and Merc CLA are doing a good trade and even Mazda are announcing better than expected sales results from the Mazda3 Fastback saloon.

    • ” For me it looks quite dumpy in the real pics but actually pretty neat in the CAD IP drawings. Could well be that the lighter colour and bigger rims make a lot of difference. ”

      Agreed.

  6. Cant find much to say wrong about this car, has Astra design cues on the dashboard, no worse than anything Japanese.

  7. Looks OK, but as BMC/BL/Rover kept discovering (but never doing anything about) segment straddling cars (1800/Maxi/Marina/Princess/HHR/R3) go nowhere in the UK or Europe. MG needs a C class car (Focus)and a D class car (Mondeo) rather than a neither one thing nor the other C/D car. Where does this leave the MG6,another C/D (but slightly more D) straddler?

  8. Interesting. Hard to tell it’s not a hatch unless viewed totally side on.

    The rear is growing on me. At first I thought “not quite right”, then “looks better in white” and now I’m trying to visualise the red one in the metal with a number plate – it could look ok.

    The overall style ain’t bad either and again will probably grow on me.

    Can’t see this type of car selling well in the UK though. As per the 6. It’s all SUV now.

  9. Think the retro reflective red plastic on the rear is a bit much but it would look like it had an enormous behind if it wasn’t there!

  10. The side profile looks fine, but there’s something wrong about that rear on view, it’s as if the top and bottom halves were designed by different designers who never met…

  11. If this dreadful looking car comes to the UK it will put paid to any future
    that MG might have had here.

  12. That rear end looks awful. Reminds me of the BMW 7 series with its ugly two tier boot. Why on earth would they bring these models to the UK? Surely no one (including people who frequent this forum) would have the bottle to actually buy one.

  13. Looks inoffensive to me. That’s not saying much, but at least it won’t stand out for all the wrong reasons.

  14. Oh wonderful, fantastic…

    Looks like a chinese guy who just won the lottery from the front

    And a Chinese guy with toilet shattering constipation at the rear…

    If Apple built it they’d call it the iParody.

    To paraphrase George from Blackadder 4

    “Miserable, slant-eyed, chihuahua eating, swine”

    I think that sums it up quite admirably.

  15. This is terrible. What are they thinking ? – I sincerely hope that this does not come to the UK.

  16. I know what it reminds me of – a beetleback Primera without the Charisma…

    “The MG Charisn’tma – the car they’ll be paying you to buy”

    “The Car (you’ll never see) in front of you is an MG”

    Aren’t I nice, I even did the advertising for them…

  17. Looks like an uglified Mazda3 saloon. Not much original thought here, they just seem to be chasing down the road of poorly-styled Asian cars led by Toyota and Hona by ruining a knockoff.

    The Mazdas, though, actually look reasonable, and my friend who last month traded his 2010 Golf TDI estate for one is currently telling anyone who’ll listen how much nicer it is to drive. He’s delighted.

    As for SAIC and MG, maybe one day they’ll design and make a car that actually surprises and delights its owner, instead of settling for mediocre. But I won’t hold my breath. Name me a Chinese product designed and made by a Chinese company that is not just an exercise in cynicism meant to make money for them. You know, a household brand name that is exclusively Chinese.

    No, I can’t think of one either.

  18. Love it!

    Further proof, if needed, that MG is safe in the custodianship of SAIC. Much like the MINI has flourished since BMW have taken the reigns, MG are set to continue their growth across the globe.

    In some respects this model is similar to the HHR, in that they have created a saloon which is even better than the hatch on which it is based. The hatch version is a great looking car, and if the scale model at LB is anything to go by, looks even better in the flesh than in photographs. The new design language of MG is strong and coherent, and yet it still manaages to reflect design cues from the past greats e.g. MGA, Maestro and more recently the MGF.

    Just hope they bring it here, as after the success of the MG3, this could be just the thing to take on the next Astra, Focus, i30 etc.

    • I’d like to believe that this post is being ironic.

      But somehow I don’t think it is. :O

  19. I’m not feeling the love, but then I don’t particularly dislike it either. Let’s wait until we see it in the flesh, with decent wheels and all the trimmings. I think the MG6 is a much better looking car in the flesh. The devil’s in the details, and it’s not until you’re walking around a car, eyeing it up from all angles, that the form starts to impress itself on your mind.

  20. Seriously wouldn’t it be better to rebadge a Hyundai and save a tonne of money, rather than build something that looks like a Hyundai but is less refined and more expensive to run?

  21. An economical efficient pair of turbodiesels for this would be nice;a decent 1.8TD diesel and a slightly bigger 2.0TD diesel couple with a 5speed manual gearbox would compliment nicely to give buyers a bit of choice and shy towards diesel if they want. The smaller MG supermini should also have had a small 1.5L TD engine with 5 speed gearbox should have also been made to boost the choice too.

  22. One thing that is interesting about it is that the small wheel to body size ratio reminds me of something from the 1980’s. I quite like the rear lights and the ridges in the bonnet that lead back from the MG badge. Talking of that badge, oh how I wish the memory of MG’s past weren’t being humiliated yet again! Apart from that, it’s utterly forgettable.

  23. Sorry, I’ve only just seen the red one taken from the back. Now I’ve seen that, the rear view of this car is nauseatingly awful. It’s right up there with the Ssangyong Rodius; I am genuinely shocked!!

  24. Euww! The front reminds me of Mrs. Slocum’s glasses and the rear, well that’s just horrible. Thank goodness my Midget and MBG-GT run great.

  25. *now* I finally understand it..

    When (for God’s) SAIC bought MG they were curious about the name, so they put it through Google translate – turns out MG stands for Munter Garages… now this ‘thing makes perfect sense..

    This isn’t quite as bad as the Ssangyong Greedo – but then Anne Widdecombe doing nude pole-dancing isn’t as bad as the Ssangyong Greedo…!

    • Whoa, whoa, whoa….

      Why such bile directed to a poor innocent vehicle.

      In responding to news and blogs on this site, we should all exercise mindfulness. There is no need to vent our rage at inaminate objects, nor to resort to name calling. This site is an institution, and we should all be the change that we want to see in the world.

      Hare krishna!

      • I could see your point if I was discussing a human being, I am not. To be brutally honest my experience of 99.9% of those has been unpleasant. However we are not talking about humanity we are talking about a car.. and while I personally feel that cars have a personality and respond to care and attention, there are some that are just unlovable. They’re the Iain Duncan Smiths of carmanity, or have the same respect for human life as Mr. F Krueger, Esq, or are downright forgettable or such a miserable mess that it’d be kinder to pull the plug and stop their suffering, for whatever reason. This MG and wonderful technological marvels such as the Yugo Sana or the Fiat Oh-No or (built by robots, driven by morons) Strada are members of this august group.
        40 years ago BL bringing out a range that is so dismally uncompetitive caused a Government enquiry… why would anyone care now? Now the twitching corpse of BL has been chopped up into bits like an unpopular character on “the walking dead”.
        About the only thing you can say for the disaster area that is SAIC/MG is (if you happen to dislike the Chinese, and I have no reason to) is that for the first time I can remember the Chinese have completely screwed the pooch on a project – they, like the OKH (OberKommando des Heers) at Stalingrad are not unbeatable… which for alot of people should be a relief.

  26. P. S. better title might be “MG5 breaks mirrors before launch”…

    Its not so much a case of “they did it on the other side too” as of a case of “they did it AT ALL”. It makes an Allegro VDP look positively fantastic..

  27. Would anyone buy a four door saloon now as, except for the luxury market, this type of car is largely dead in Britain now. A shame as if this car had a more obvious saloon rear, it could look good and maybe restart interest in four door saloons.

  28. Like many comments here, I like the front end styling. The profile looks OK but very similar to the Proton GEN2. Not too excited about the rear end. Bigger wheels would improve too. The engine range does sound promising, but as documented here it may not be available in the UK in any case.

  29. Looks alright to me.

    In UK spec (if it was to come here)with bigger wheels,lower, side skirts etc I think it would look quite good.

  30. The Juke is quirky ugly – I personally think it should be killed with fire for so many reasons (not the least of those being the thing is borderline dangerous as regards its rear lights). But you can kind of respect the company for making it, like you could respect Tatra for the T77/87, sure it had the handling of a VW beetle on worn crossplies on a skidpan – but it had a air-cooled V8 in the *boot* (and killed alot of probably unpleasant SS officers as well). If I come into a decent amount of money my first purchase will be a Tatra T603 (to be converted to B5 spec).
    This horrible disaster area is another thing entirely. Its not quirky, its not unusual, it has no redeeming technical or mechanical features whatsoever. Its a horrible statement of crapness on wheels thats about as likeable as industrial slurry and probably will have about all the personality of industrial slurry. It exists for no other reason to exist to fill a niche thats already filled, in the forlorn hope that some poor Mr Magoo-esque individual will buy it because of long lost memories of an MG Magnette (the first one) or something..
    If this is the best SAIC can come up with – it would have been better to have taken the marque outside and stood it up against a sunny wall..

    How do I put this into context. Heres an example. I know for a fact that the Hyundai i10 has been so popular Hyundai can literally not make them fast enough, ditto other models that use the 1 litre and 1.25 litre engines that they use. The MG3? I have seen the grand total of ONE on the road and two at Tolleys in Stanway as demonstrators. I’ll leave you to do the math on that one. But it gets worse. The current models competing with the MG5/6 from Hyundai are a step change in styling, as well if not better built – so where does that leave MG? They cant compete on price with companies like Dacia, they cant compete on the middle ground with Hyundai/Kia, Audi & BMW drivers wouldnt be seen on the way to their own funerals in them.. where does MG fit any more?

  31. I genuinely want to like the newer MG cars, but honestly how can you? Although not a pure MG, the ZT and TF were beautiful looking cars from every angle, soft lines with a strong presence of testosterone. Remove the badges from the above car and it could be just about anything. Odd angles and strange creases break up the body into far too many sections, wheras I believe an MG body should flow as if each panel has been hand crafted. And of course it should always have an understated hint of sports car heritage. I hope the new car does well because I want the MG brand preserved. I do appreciate (Unlike MINI) the new company embraces the past in their marketing – if only the products did the same.

  32. I really like it in white.

    Obviously it needs some UK modifications but Im sure the talented folk at Longbridge could sort that.

    It seems to me that the same people that bemoan MG for ‘looking bland, the same as everything else on the road nowadays’ also dont like the design touches like the rear boot strip – i.e a bit different. I think the rear is my favourite part.

    Good luck to MG, hopefully they will bring this over here so that the dealers have something else to sell.

  33. It looks like a generic car. You know when you were a kid and you drew a car, it would be a basic 3 box design like a lada/volvo 240/mk5 cortina?
    Like that. But from a 21st century perspective.

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