MG could be first to market with an electric sports coupé
Striking electric 2+2 could hit showrooms in time for the 60th anniversary of its MG B GT forebear
MG has channeled the spirit of the MGB GT to create a four-seat coupé version of the Cyberster – which could be in showrooms as soon as next year.
Dubbed the Cyber GTS, it is making its debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, as part of MG‘s starring role as the ‘celebrated marque’ of this year’s event, appearing alongside the new 2024 MG HS, the radical EXE 181 concept and an MG-themed central sculpture topped by the Cyberster and original MG B.
The GTS is officially a concept for now, but the company’s top designers Jozef Kaban and Carl Gotham said public reaction to the running prototype will decide whether MG takes it to the showroom.
Importantly, they say, the Cyberster was engineered from the off to be available as a convertible and a coupé, and the GTS is understood to be very close to what a road-ready car would look like – barring some tweaks to the boot lid and other subtle alterations.
The interior has not been revealed, but would be all but identical to the open-roof car, save for the addition of a pair of rear seats that MG suggests will genuinely accommodate two passengers – rather than being best used as a luggage shelf.
The GTS’s roofline is raised slightly over the coupé to boost headroom in the rear row, but otherwise it is structurally unchanged, with the same footprint, wheelbase and general proportions.
Pressed for a potential launch date, MG’s designers were tight-lipped, though they noted that 2025 will be the 60th anniversary of the MG B GT coupé, which launched two years after the Roadster, suggesting a modern reincarnation could be a fitting tribute.
Ex-Volkswagen designer Kaban, speaking to reporters for the first time as vice president of MG parent company SAIC’s global design centre, said that while the GTS would serve as a logical successor to the B GT, it is not a nostalgia-fuelled project.
“You cannot just make retro cars – you cannot just copy and improve. You always have to find something new,” he said. “MG does this very well with electric cars.”
He said it was important “not to make any kind of compromise” when designing the fixed-roof GTS, highlighting the retention of the Cyberster’s scissor doors as a particular highlight.
He told Autocar that while the GTS is a wildly different proposition to MG’s volume-focused line of hatchbacks and SUVs, he expects the concept to still “talk to a big amount of people”, because “we have many rational things in our life, but we need some special moments”.
Crucially, though, it has been designed with accessibility in mind: “We are not trying to make a super-sports car to satisfy a certain amount of people. We would like to open up, as MG always did, to a big audience”.
In line with that more ethos, the GTS has been designed to be approachable and unthreatening – more as a grand tourer than a full-blown sports coupé. “There are many sports cars which are under too much tension,” explained Kaban. “They feel like they’re going to explode any second.
“But here it’s about taking time. You know you can drive quickly, but you can enjoy the time as well. You can stop time.”
With the project yet to be officially green-lit, there is no word on projected pricing, but the convertible starts at £55,000 in 335bhp rear-motor guise and £60,000 with 503bhp from two motors, and the GTS could be expected to be priced roughly in line with that.
The prototype is said to be rear-driven, though.
Just as the Cyberster stands largely uncontested in the electric convertible segment (barring the much more expensive Maserati Grancabrio Folgore), the Cyber GTS could be the first EV of its kind to go on sale. The BMW M2 is the only similarly sized and priced 2+2 coupé currently on sale, and is not in line for an EV option in the immediate future.
