‘A future classic’ – An Honest appraisal of the MG ZS

 

The guys over at Honest John Classics selected the MG ZS for their most recent ‘Future Classic Friday’, praising the ZS and the engineers at Longbridge for the fantastic job they did turning the comfort-focused Rover 45 into the sharp, poised ZS with little time and an even smaller budget.

The article delves into the history of the MG ZS, how it surprised journalists at the launch, the full range that included everything from 1.6 to 2.5 V6, the 2.0l L-series diesel, manual and CVT boxes.  While some made do with as little as 110bhp, every ZS boasted the same fantastic chassis dynamics.

“The assembled journalists weren’t expecting the Z-cars to be well engineered. After all, the 45 on which the ZS was based was way behind the class average. The interior packaging was poor, the plastics grim. In addition, the rather colourful paint pallet and less then subtle rear wing made the ZS far from a shrinking violet, as if MGR had ram-raided its nearest Halfords and then proceeded to glue on its entire heist. The ZS, then, was asking for a bit of a kicking. But for one thing…

Under the skin, MG Rover’s engineers had been extremely busy. Not only that, but they’d managed to prove they were among the very best in the business when it came to chassis dynamics. Whisper it, but all Rovers from the 90s onwards were far better to drive than most people expected. The ZS, though, was a complete revelation. The press wanted to hate it, but they couldn’t, because the 180 was (a flawed) but brilliant piece of kit. No front-wheel-drive performance saloon could match it for agility, steering feel or point-to-point pace. Very few 4WD cars could, either, yet the ZS was a fraction of the price of a Subaru WRX.“

If you’d like to take a look at the full article, you can do so on the Honest John Classics website and you can find more on the ZR/ZS/ZT Register, the part of the MG Car Club the caters for the ZS here.