The MG Hector SUV was revealed last week through a TVC, and it’ll be launched in India shortly. A Team-BHP member, RavenAvi, reports that the SUV will be priced comparably with the Tata Harrier and Mahindra XUV500, which means that the Hector could start from around Rs. 14 lakhs, going all the way up to Rs. 18 lakhs. The SUV will be a five seater, but will be larger than both the Tata Harrier and the Mahindra XUV500. The actual launch is expected to happen in India by the end of May, with deliveries slated to commence by the end of June.
The Hector will offer both petrol and diesel engine options. The petrol engine is expected to be a 1.5 liter-4 cylinder turbocharged unit with about 143 Bhp of peak power and 250 Nm of peak torque. A 6 speed manual gearbox will be standard with this engine. The diesel will be a 2 liter unit sourced from Fiat. The turbo diesel is expected to put out 170 Bhp of peak power and 350 Nm of peak torque, numbers that are identical to that produced by the same engine on the Jeep Compass. A 6 speed manual gearbox will be standard with this engine as well.
The petrol engine is likely to get an in-house developed automatic gearbox right from the beginning while the diesel engine will have to wait until 2020 for an automatic gearbox. The Hector will be a monocoque, front wheel driven SUV and an all wheel drive layout is unlikely to be offered even as an option. Notably, there’s a 7 seater Hector in the works, but that version will make it to the Indian market only in 2020. For now though, the 5 seat version with plenty of luggage space is what India will get. In India, the Hector will rival the Tata Harrier, Mahindra XUV500 and the Jeep Compass.
The Hector will be sold under the MG badge, and the SUV will be built at General Motors’ Halol factory in Gujarat. The MG brand – originally British – now belongs to Chinese automaker SAIC, which has a major stake in General Motors, and that took over the GM factory at Gujarat after the latter decided to exit the Indian market. The MG brand will be marketed as a British brand in the Indian market, and its Chinese connection is likely to be played down. Notably, the MG Hector is actually based on the Baojun 530, a popular Chinese SUV.
The Hector will be followed by an electric SUV, which MG is likely to launch by the end of 2019, or early 2020. There’s a Hyundai Creta-sized SUV also in the works for a launch in India. MG Motor is expected to operate mainly in the SUV space in the Indian market given the demand for such vehicles here. The automaker has already begun setting up dealerships across India ahead of the Hector’s launch. We expect MG Motor to launch the Hector with at least 50 dealerships across the country ready to sell the SUV.
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