The GS Gets A Facelift – But Not For The UK?

Last month we brought you news of MG’s second SUV, the smaller MG ZS, complete with styling that broke with the previous ‘diamond flow’ theme. The new look was arguably moremature and upmarket than the old, with hints of contemporary Jaguar andMazda on the exterior and even some BMWMINI themes inside. Now David Knowles brings news of further changes to SAIC’s other MG SUV, the GS. Don’t start saving your pennies just yet, though...

The MG ZS was a major talking point at last November’s Guangzhou Motor Show, but it proved to be only one of the surprises concealed in SAIC’s silken sleeves. At the end of the year, the company revealed what amounts to a major facelift for the GS, combining a number of external nips and tucks (mostly to the front and rear bumper fascias and their associated fixtures and fittings rather than to the sheet metal) together with a dramatic change inside the cockpit, with a fascia and trim line which obviously echoed that of the ZS.

In their press release, intended primarily for the enthusiastic Chinese media, SAIC announced that the new GS would be retailing at a lower price, starting at a base price of just 98,000 Yuan, which is about £11,700. The company proclaimed this meant that the GS had completed a transformation from, in their words: ‘Number one power performance model’ (in its small SUV sector) to ‘Number one cost performance model.’ This was accompanied by some rather spurious hyperbole on how this had been achieved through the ‘five twos’ – perhaps we can blame the translation, but this made little obvious sense and need not concern us here.

Whilst the front and back of the car have been altered to reduce the sharp lines of the original GS, the most obvious changes are inside. SAIC suggested that these involve ‘many soft interior materials produced by a precise manufacturing process.’ Certainly the interior features much greater use of soft leather and neat rows of double stitching, whilst the new steering wheel is much sportier than the ones seen in SAIC’s previous MGs.