The latest claim is that MG has sold a million cars to European customers. That, however, can’t be quite right. That figure is predicated purely on the reborn MG, which was reintroduced to Europe in 2011, the brand having been all-but-literally plucked by China’s Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corporation (SAIC) from the ashes of what had been the MG Rover Group in 2005.
So officially speaking, that’s the only official MG? But that can’t be right, as back in 2024 the company was – officially, even becoming the featured marque at the Goodwood Festival of Speed – celebrating its centenary, 100 years from when Cecil Kimber started building sporty cars out of Morris bits and pieces in a garage in Oxfordshire.
If you combine “old” MG’s sales with “new” MG’s sales, you should end up somewhere around the 2.5 million mark by my reckoning.
Mind you, it’s still a sobering thought to note that “old” MG took 50 years to build its millionth car, whereas its new Chinese incarnation has taken only slightly more than a quarter of that. And the ambition isn’t stopping there.
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Not content with currently being the biggest-selling Chinese car brand in Europe – albeit also one with a figleaf of classic British branding – MG wants to grow and grow quickly.
Currently it has a 2.5 per cent market share in Ireland, which is pretty good going and which puts it well inside the top 20 marques in the sales charts. However, that’s not sufficient – MG wants 5 per cent of the Irish car market within the next year, a growth in sales that would put it on a par with the likes of Peugeot and Ford.
That would have seemed almost unthinkable a decade ago, when MG’s line-up consisted of the cheap and not especially cheerful ZS crossover and the slightly larger, but not much lovelier, HS SUV. Now, though?
Now MG has followed the path well-worn by the likes of Skoda, Kia and Hyundai, which led those brands up the steps from the bargain basement and into the realms of middle-class respectability. As with most Chinese brands, MG has just done it more quickly.
While you will still find a few cheap-feeling models in the line-up – yes, latest ZS crossover, we’re looking at you – the fact is that MGs these days are feeling ever more sophisticated, even semi-premium in all but their pricing.
The big, new HS is a classy SUV that drives well; the hugely popular all-electric MG4 hatchback is about to be updated with an interior that at last matches in quality what its entertaining chassis has been delivering for ages in engineering terms; and now there’s this, the MG S6 EV.
It would be simple to say this all-electric family SUV is a bigger version of the already-popular S5 EV, the model that replaced the antediluvian ZS EV 18 months ago. It’s not quite that simple, though.
Yes, the S6 borrows the S5’s basic platform, but it’s a much larger, grander car and one that’s aimed directly at the bestselling Volkswagen ID.4 and even at the semi-premium BYD Sealion 7.
However, I think it’s a closer adjunct to the Skoda Enyaq – like the MG, a car from a once-budget brand that has more than a hint of premium-like appeal about it.
Not that you’d guess that from the price. As ever with Chinese brands, a low-hanging sticker is the primary point of appeal, and the MG S6 doesn’t disappoint, coming in at €39,495 for the Excite Long Range model.
That’s not actually all that striking a price – you can get a VW ID.4, with the same 77kWh battery, and a comparable range (566km compared with the MG’s 530km), but the S6 undercuts the BYD by almost €10,000 and has considerably more range.
It also feels rather more enticing than the VW when you sit inside. MG really hasn’t stinted on the cabin quality in this S6, and there’s soft, quilted material for the seats and doors, which looks and feels almost like suede, while the rest of the dash feels almost Lexus-esque in its quality and finish.
Better yet, MG has been listening to the gripes of European car critics (self included) and has started fitting real buttons to its dashboards anew. The small bank of physical switches makes life on board the MG S6 so much easier, and there’s colossal space front and rear.
Families will love this car, especially the higher-spec Exclusive model, which gets heated rear seats to go with its copious legroom. The boot’s also massive; 675 litres purloins the Enyaq’s crown as most practical by about 90 litres, and the MG doubles down by having a large 124-litre “frunk” in the nose.
Any good to drive? Yes, as long as you’re not looking for serious thrills. This S6 might have an MG sports car badge, but it’s closer in spirit to the 1950s Magnette saloon – it’s all about the comfort.
Rolling refinement is excellent, with only a faint tickle of wind noise at motorway speeds, and our average battery consumption of 19kWh/100km suggests an easy 400km real-world range. Performance is... fine. The single rear-mounted, rear-drive motor develops a healthy 244hp, but that and the 350Nm of torque is easily smothered by the 1,908kg kerb weight.
There is a sport mode, but there’s not much point in using it as it doesn’t turn the MG S6 into a truly sporting machine and the harder you press on a twisty road, the more unruly everything becomes. Just don’t bother – sit back in those wonderfully upholstered seats and let the journey just roll by. Your blood pressure will thank you.
So it’s not exciting to drive, and the exterior styling is close to being generic, but there’s something about this MG S6. Something about the combo of reasonable pricing, combined with truly enticing interior quality and space. It’s quite possibly going to be a hard car to resist. Two million sales ahoy?
