MG Comet review, road test

Can MG’s mould-breaking EV redefine the concept of an urban hatchback? We put it through our instrumented tests to find out.

Published on Jul 19, 2023 08:00:00 AM

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You’ll certainly appreciate the Comet from behind the wheel not only due to its excellent frontal visibility and compact dimensions but also due to its light, buttery smooth steering. Its turning radius is just 4.2m, so manoeuvrability is excellent.

Of course, with wheels the size of a medium pizza, it doesn’t smother road imperfections like a car with larger tyres, and its short travel suspension can occasionally feel clunky over sharp potholes.

It feels extremely easy to navigate this EV through narrow, meandering lanes.

But on the whole, thanks to its multi-link suspension (rear), the ride is acceptable and does not come across as too firm or too soft either. It only feels choppy over bad road surfaces.

Expectedly, with small wheels and narrow tyres, a slab-sided design and a light kerb weight, highway drives aren’t very confidence-inspiring. A simple lane-changing manoeuvre results in a prominent top-end sway, and wind drafts from heavy vehicles passing by at highway speeds can make it rock around a bit. If you venture into attacking corners, barring the body roll, you’ll realise that its rear-wheel-drive layout and solid rear axles ensure that there’s a good amount of mechanical grip, even though its skinny tyres break traction much sooner.

The brakes have adequate stopping power to keep things under control and the pedal feels quite natural too. But panic braking scenarios can unsettle the car, and we recorded a longer than average, 34-metre stopping distance in our test from 80-0kph.