irishcar.com - MG TF first view

So maybe I haven’t reached a mid-life crisis yet (or perhaps because my life has always been more or less of a crisis anyway that one more is unnoticeable), but I’ve never yearned for a two-seater sports car. Big cars are more my thing.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy a sports car when given the chance. And last week I had that chance again, this time with the upcoming replacement for the MG F roadster, which has been selling pretty well in Europe since its launch back in 1995.

The MG TF is taking its place. And apart from a lot of new bodywork and a general stiffening of structural parts, there’s been a very serious change in the suspension system. Instead of the old Hydragas setup, which purists always complained was not true sports car underpinning, there’s been a switch to a brand new but traditional coil spring effort.

There have also been upgrades to the existing range of 1.8-litre engines, and the introduction of a 1.6-litre unit which straight away puts the TF on an engine size par with its major competitor here, the Mazda MX-5.

The MG sports car history goes back quite a way, to 1924 to be precise, and there may well be a few older drivers around who remember the 14/28 of that time. Certainly there will be former Midget and MGB drivers out there, and when MG finally got back into the roadster market after a pretty long absence, there were no less than 77,500 people who bought themselves an MG F in the last seven years.

In Ireland, the car sells about 60-70 copies a year, small potatoes really. But the MG F is extremely important in iconic terms for MG Rover, particularly with the revival of the brand in the last year as a series of hot saloons based on the current crop of Rover cars.

And the determination of MG Rover to get back its sporting heritage has also been shown by the series of racing and rally cars which it has developed in very short order, and the very successful performance in the Le Mans 24-hour last year is testament to that resolve. We’ll be seeing more.

However, back to the MG TF. In visual terms, the front end has been made much more strong in looks, and maybe the image is more masculine (though fully 50% of the F has been bought by women, so they don’t want to knock that market).

There’s also been a major rejigging of the rear, with an inbuilt spoiler on the boot lid. Between this and the front changes, there has been a very real improvement in anti-lift behaviour, so that the car under speed is substantially steadier on the road.

The steering has been changed too. And I found it appreciably sharper in use than is my recollection of the older car. It is still the electro-hydraulic system as used before, but the software managing the electronics part of it has been tweaked for that sharper performance.

There are four engine options now, and I drove the 134hp 135 and the 158hp 160 on last week’s jaunt. On a couple of runs which took in both highway and mountain roads (and they have roads as bad in Portugal as we have here!) the new MG proved itself to be a tauter and more sporty car than the outgoing model. The extra punch from the 160 was certainly obvious, and its extra torque also came in a little lower down the rev range than in the lesser-powered engine, which made for a degree less gearchanging.

Since they also get rain in Portugal, we got the chance to raise the roof. Not that we particularly wanted to, and if we could have maintained a 30mph speed it would not have been required because the aerodynamics would simply rush the rain over our heads, but I don’t like leaving back cars that have to be bailed out after a run.

Putting up the top proved easy enough. But, of course, it ruined the basic effect of what these cars are all about anyway. Roadsters are for the open road, with open tops, and the wind ruining the hairdo.

(Though there was a rear wind deflector effort which Trish said worked quite well in keeping back that airblast which doesn’t do the hairstyle any good. Me, I don’t have to worry, because there isn’t enough hair to have a style.)

Anyway, there is available as an optional extra a very neat coupe hard-top, which can be had in black or white, or body colour. And if I was buying one of these car, I’d have one for winter use.

The MG F and this new one are, of course, mid-engined, and the motor is behind the shoulders. So when you let the revs climb (and you really should do so to get the best out of the engine), there is quite a throaty roar around the ears. It’s nice if you like that kind of thing. I suspect, though, that my choice would be the Stepspeed CVT autobox car, which has maximum pulling power (actually the same as in the 135) at a nice quiet 3000rpm, a full two grand revs lower down and much more relaxed driving.

The interior of the car has been left more or less the same as before, and that’s no bad thing, because it was always in my view quite nice. There are a couple of new trim options, with the top-end cars available in a very good-looking seat material of leather and Alcantra suede.

A colleague of two grumbled about the retention of the old steering wheel, but why shouldn’t they when it is one of the most satisfying handfulls on the circuit? And somebody groused about the ‘twist’ stalk wipers operation that goes back to the Honda-Rover axis. The same guy was also a bit upset about the use of the ‘T’ prefix along with ‘F’.

Which just goes to show, that there’s very little to complain about seriously with this car. We just had fun with it. Enjoyed it. Which is what it’s all about.

We’re looking forward to a more extended time with one in some months to come. Meantime, if you want to put down an order, you can expect to pay between 29,175-33,560 euros.

(As is now our practice, we also give you the price range in the country of origin, and in the UK it is available between 25,358-32,192 euros. Don’t blame MG Rover, blame Mr MCreevy. Blame all us motorists ourselves collectively for not voting with our VRT complaints.)