Because what else is the MG4 X-Power if not an MG Maestro for the 21st Century?
Forty years ago, the Maestro was the mainstay of MG’s range.
It was boringly competent but did nothing to entertain. So, with the likes of the Volkswagen Golf GTi and the Ford Escort XR3i cleaning up in showrooms, MG bosses decided to go all out.
They lifted the turbo power unit and drive line from the larger and heavier MG Montego and shoehorned it into the Maestro.
The result was a bit of a beast. With 150bhp on tap, all going through the front wheels and tyres, the Maestro was fast in a straight line. MG claimed a 0-62mph time of 6.7 seconds, but some contemporary road tests found that it was even quicker if you got the launch right.
That instantly made the Maestro one of the fastest hot hatchbacks on sale and led to a memorable advertising campaign with the headline – ‘Faster than a Ferrari, a Porsche, a Lamborghini, a Lotus, an Aston…’ Sadly for buyers looking to snap up a family hatch with the manners of a supercar, the chassis had a hard time keeping all that power and torque pointing in the right direction.
Critics pointed out that the response under hard acceleration and during cornering wasn’t a patch on the Golf’s supple yet secure handling. The Maestro would pitch and bounce, scrabbling for grip while the Golf glided serenely onwards.
Fast forward 40 years and we have the MG4 X-Power – a humble hatch with supercar slaying acceleration.
Engineers have uprated the impressive MG4 hatch with an extra motor on the rear axle. The front motor produces 201bhp and the rear 228bhp for a combined total of 429bhp. That’s a lot, despite the MG’s rather hefty1,800kg weight.
And because the MG4 can deploy all that power instantly the X-Power goes like a rocket.
Strap yourself in because the 0-62mph time is 3.8 seconds. That’s faster than a Porsche 911 Carrera.
And it’s no figment of MG’s imagination.
Pitched against a Nissan GT-R and a Lamborghini Gallardo over a quarter mile, the MG4 shot off the line like a scalded cat. True, the Nissan caught it by the end of the straight, thanks mainly to a superior top speed (the MG being all in at 124mph while the Nissan doesn’t stop accelerating until the speedo reads 180mph), but there was only half a car’s length in it. As for the Lambo, it was left choking on dust.
And the cost of this amazing performance? A shade over £36,000.
For some, you could end this test right there. Nothing else on the market offers the same kind of performance for such a relatively modest price.
But, rather like its Maestro Turbo predecessor, the MG4 is something of a dragster rather than a sportster.
The front and rear suspension has been stiffened to help with cornering, but not lowered in order to protect the battery which is slung beneath the floor. Torque vectoring and an electronic diff control wheel spin effectively, but on traditional B-roads the MG4 doesn’t feel a great deal different to the standard hatch on which it is based. It’s not a car that’ll make you want to take the twisty route home after work.
There’s another drawback to having all that power and two motors: battery range.
The standard MG4 is good for approximately 200 miles and the extended range model can stretch that out to more than 270.
But the added weight and power consumption of the X-Power set up means you’ll be lucky to see 200 miles between charges (despite the performance variant having the bigger 64 kWh battery also found in the long range version).
When I drove it in the recent freezing weather a real-world range of 150 miles was more realistic – and that’s not enough.
On one long trip, I had to drive with the heater off and the windows down to preserve power and stop the windows from misting up. I had to do exactly the same thing in the first gen Nissan Leaf I tested. So much for progress.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I’d be willing to trade the XPower’s searing acceleration for the single motor variant’s increased range. Away from the racetrack, the ability to travel nearly 300 miles beats supercar-bothering 0-62mph acceleration every time.
Inside, the chunky steering wheel is off-set from the pedals so you have to sit at an angle. You’ll get used to it, but it’s a bit distracting at first.
Otherwise, the cabin is perfectly fine in a stripped-back-to-basics kind of way. Some soft-touch plastic atop the fascia lifts the ambience, but there’s way too much information presented on the small digital instrument screen. The heating and ventilation is controlled from the 10.2-inch widescreen in the middle of the dash. As with all touch-screens, it’s just too fiddly to safely adjust on the move.
Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard but the car failed to play nice with my Samsung Galaxy phone so I had to rely on Bluetooth instead. A wireless charging pad is a nice addition and there are a couple of hard-to-reach USB ‘C’ ports for powering older handsets.
The MG4 was first and foremost designed as a family car so there’s plenty of room for everyone, good visibility from the driver’s seat and even a decent boot.
Summing up it’s very fast in a straight line, but not much fun to drive on a twisty road. A bigger battery and more range would make it more practical, but that would drive up the price.
And there’s the rub because, as it stands, the MG4 XPower is a massive performance car bargain. Nothing comes close.
Forty years ago, MG Rover sold just over 500 Maestro Turbos. Today every one of them is an appreciating classic. The MG4 might not achieve the same status as its older brother, but I expect MG to sell an awful lot more. No wonder MG is the fastest growing car brand in the UK.
