MG design boss: ‘SUV trend will pass’, no MG ute planned

The head of design at Chinese brand MG predicts the SUV trend will pass, and has confirmed no dual-cab MG ute is in the works.

In Australia, the SUV is quickly becoming the most popular style of passenger vehicle, usurping the humble car. Models such as the Toyota Corolla are morphing into SUVs like the Corolla Cross – a trend seen across not only the Australian market, but everywhere.

Speaking to Wheels from SAIC’s global headquarters in Shanghai, MG Global Chief Designer Oleg Son said the SUV trend won’t last – or at least it's changing into something else.

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“My hope is that [the] SUV will not survive forever,” he told Wheels.

“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’. Then one day they were fed up with that, and the SUVs came in. This kind of thing could happen.”

Son said he foresaw consumers shifting away from large SUVs and into smaller, more stylish vehicles.

“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.”

Son, who previously worked as a designer at Kia and Citroen, hastened to add it didn’t mean MG would stop selling SUVs – just that they’d change.

“An SUV can be lower, very aerodynamic – there is space for different types of morphology and profile,” he said.

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MG one of the few brands not planning a ute

Meanwhile, Son confirmed that MG had no plans at this stage to produce a dual-cab ute – currently the most popular type of vehicle in Australia.

Dual-cab utes such as the Toyota HiLux regularly dominate the sales charts in Australia.

“At the moment, I am not working on such things,” he said. “But at Kia, I did. 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.”

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Son said MG was focused on introducing sports cars and “fun” models, beginning with its Cyberster all-electric convertible expected to be revealed in full at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on July 13-16.

He said the Cyberster would accelerate faster than a Porsche 911 Turbo S – for a fraction of the cost.