It certainly feels like small cars have been in the doldrums of late. There has been so much talk of car makers rolling back on compact models – witness Ford’s cruel culling of the Fiesta, and VW’s talk about not replacing the Polo nor Audi the A1 – that it’s actually easy to miss that we might be on the cusp of a small car renaissance.
As electric hybrid tech becomes more affordable, so car makers can start to turn profits on more compact models, and finally we can start talking about cars that aren’t 2-tonne SUVs all the time. Renault is on the verge of launching its gorgeous new 5 EV, while a new electric Twingo waits in the wings, as does VW’s incoming Polo-sized new ID.2.
Or, right here and now, you can buy an MG 3. Okay, so it’s a hybrid rather than a fully-electric car, but that’s okay because going by the sales charts hybrids are way more popular with Irish car buyers than models which come only with a battery. This new MG 3 – we never got the chance to buy the old MG 3 which is a shame as it was a smart-looking thing that wore its cheap and cheerful nature with pride – is a hybrid-only model, and so will be chasing sales from the Toyota Yaris Hybrid and Renault Clio Hybrid.
Actually, it may well be chasing prices from the incoming new Dacia Spring electric car, as the prices of the two models are not likely to be very far apart, and the MG has the advantage of offering more familiar, arguably more useable, technology.
In fact, MG 3 Hybrid prices start from €22,995, rising to €26,745 for our Exclusive specification test car. That base price seriously undercuts the cheapest Yaris Hybrid, and is a full €7,000 cheaper than the basic Clio E-Tech Hybrid. Surely, for that kind of cash, it can’t be as good as either?
Well, maybe not. After all, while it might be wearing the figleaf of an old-school British sports car brand, MG is of course an entirely Chinese company these days (bar some engineering and design centres scattered around the UK and Europe), and whatever your feelings about unfair (or otherwise) Chinese competition might be, there’s no doubt that Chinese car makers are dramatically leveraging their financial and production advantages to create decent cars for less money.
Remember that the all-electric MG 4 is a former winner of the Irish Times best car of the year nod, and it remains arguably the best-to-drive electric hatchback around.
Can the MG 3 Hybrid – which is in an admittedly very tenuous way a descendant of the old Austin/Rover Metro if you squint a bit at the historical timeline and maybe use a Sharpie to fill in the blank bits – match the MG 4 in that regard?
No, it can’t. It’s not as sharp to drive as the 4. But that doesn’t mean it’s anything other than a thoroughly good car.
Style-wise, it’s actually to my eyes not as handsome as the sharp-edged previous MG 3, looking a bit like a Peugeot 207 that’s been left to melt slightly. Equally, the MG 3′s interior is less than strikingly impressive. It’s well-enough bolted together, but the plastics used are cheap and tinny, and the seats feel as if you sink through the cushion and end up sitting on the frame itself.
There is a 10.25-inch touchscreen as standard, backed up by a seven-inch driver’s digital instrument display and both are fine, but lack the refinements and sharp graphics of some rivals, the Renault Clio especially. The menu structure of the big screen is OK, and helped by physical shortcut buttons beneath, but ultimately – as with so many – it just makes you pine for some proper buttons.
The squared-off steering wheel (which possibly represents some kind of genetic memory of the old Austin Allegro’s ‘quartic’ wheel, but perhaps that’s too fanciful) feels a bit cheap in your hands too, but what the MG 3 does have is lots of space. There’s loads of storage space in the front of the cabin, and in the back there’s enough room for a six-foot passenger to sit comfortably behind the six-foot driver. Try that in the Yaris or the Clio, and you’ll be disappointed. Equally, the 293-litre boot is bigger than the class norm (if still eclipsed by the Skoda Fabia’s massive 380-litre boot).
All this is all well and good, but a hybrid car has – arguably – one job to do and that’s provide economical motoring. This, the MG 3 Hybrid does in spades. The 1.5-litre petrol engine, backed up by a 100kW electric motor, provides a robust 194hp, and a frankly-not-very-believable 425Nm of torque (this is MG’s official figure, but we suspect that it’s the figure at the flywheel, rather than at the tyres). The 0-100km/h comes up in a very respectable 8.0secs, but you’ll have to endure a rather grinding, shouty engine note if you’re going to do that.
Much better to let the electric motor do its lowdown lugging thing and just lope along. The MG 3 Hybrid may have hot-hatch power (the late, lamented Ford Fiesta ST had 200hp remember ...) but it’s no hot-hatch to drive. The steering is light and numb, and while the MG 3 can be coaxed around a corner pretty briskly, its suspension quickly runs out of ideas on a truly challenging road, and just resorts to pogoing up and down a bit. It’s not badly behaved, though, and feels entirely fine amid its natural town-and-urban road environment. It’s also fine on the motorway, easily flowing with bigger cars in traffic, and while it’s not the most refined thing in the world, what did you expect for €22,995?
What you might not have expected is exceptional fuel economy. A Toyota Yaris Hybrid uses a dinky little three-cylinder engine and just 115hp to achieve its impressive economy figures. A Renault Clio uses a detuned 1.6-litre engine and a massively complicated mixture of gearbox and two electric motors. The MG 3 Hybrid has a three-speed box and more power than it really needs, and yet it easily averaged 4.5-litres per 100km (that’s 62mpg) in our hands.
[ Will charging an EV at my house double my electricity bill?Opens in new window ]
Really, really push it hard on a twisty mountain road and that fuel economy does, inevitably fall ... to 4.9-litres per 100km. This is a hugely economical car, seemingly no matter how you drive it, and with CO2 emissions of 100g/km it’ll cost you only €170 a year to tax.
I don’t think that you can call the MG 3 Hybrid a thrilling car, nor an especially exciting one. It’s a simple small car, with a cheap cabin, a low price tag, and a spectacularly economical hybrid engine. None of which is anything to be ashamed of, and in fact much of which is to be truly celebrated. In common with some other small cars we’ve recently tested – the Dacia Spring and the Suzuki Swift – the MG 3 Hybrid is a terrific reminder of one salient motoring fact: That sometimes just enough car is plenty enough.
Lowdown: MG 3 Hybrid Exclusive
Power: 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine with 100kW motor and hybrid battery producing 194hp and 425Nm of torque and powering the front wheels via a three-speed automatic transmission.
CO2 emissions (annual motor tax) 100g/km (€170).
Fuel consumption: 4.4l/100km (WLTP)
0-100km/h: 8.0secs.
Price: €26,745 as tested, MG 3 Hybrid starts from €22,995
Our rating: 3/5.
Verdict: Has the competition beaten for price, and matches the likes of Toyota and Renault for economy. Cheap cabin, but you could live with that.
