MG ZT V8 260
We take MG’s V8 hotrod into north Wales to mark the MG Car Club’s ‘Save The Zeds’ campaign
Perhaps the scenery isn’t helping, but I can’t help feeling that the people of North Wales are missing a petrolhead treat. I’ve brought them arguably MG’s greatest car in a generation – and nobody seems to have noticed.
It’s a glorious Saturday evening in Llandudno, and the MG ZT V8 260 that I’ve rocked up in is parked up for the night on the town’s picturesque Victorian promenade. Its ten-spoke alloys and Pearl Black paintwork set off the chunky saloon profile perfectly and exude a quiet menace, but no-one who passes it seems to notice. To the untrained eye it’s just another Rover 75 – but for me, that just adds to this giant-killer’s appeal.
Rewind a couple of hours and I’m on the other side of the English border, catching up with MG Car Club Zed Register member, Mike Haughton, who’s bravely agreed to chuck the ZT’s keys in CCW’s direction for the weekend; regular readers will know that we’re well versed with the Zed Register, which helped to keep our old £500 Challenge ZR 105 out of trouble. As 2018 marks the 15th anniversary of the V8-engined ZT – the most powerful car the register caters for – registrar Paul Money and ZT owner Mike offered us a chance to mark the occasion by taking it for a proper drive. Any impression that I’m in anything approaching a normal ZT is shattered the instant I close the rather hefty driver’s door and the 4.6-litre Ford Triton V8 – better known for its appearances in 1990s Mustangs – thumps into life. It’s not as baritone as some of Detroit’s older V8s, but still serves up a far more purposeful bellow than the 2.5-litre V6 that does the ZT 190’s bidding. It’s effortless on the dual carriageways threading their way through Cheshire towards the Welsh border – flick the chunky gearlever into fifth and it’ll barely be doing 1000rpm at 70mph, so it always has that Bentley-esque feeling of having plenty more in reserve for when you truly need it.
It’s happy to lock horns with far more modern BMWs and Audis in the outside lane, but it really starts to settle into its cross-country stride once I peel off the A55 and join the thin sliver of asphalt crisscrossing the Denbighshire Moors.
My route through North Wales takes me across some of the trickiest driving roads in Britain – over the Horseshoe Pass near Llangollen, skipping around the A5 on the B-roads past Llyn Brenig and then onto Betws-y-Coed. It’s here where the ZT’s V8 really comes alive; there’s an urgent bellow from beneath the MG’s bonnet once the Triton V8 surges past 3000rpm, and all of its mid-range torque is dumped in your lap. It’s not as balletic as a BMW on these roads, nor does it have the sudden punch of the Mitsubishi Evos and Subaru Imprezas with which it shared a price point when it was new. Pushing into the tighter turns on the roads heading towards Snowdonia, I can definitely feel that this is an altogether weightier experience. Then again, the plump leather seats and the way the cabin seems to shrink around me make the whole experience feel strangely familiar; I could almost swear that I’m in a four-door TVR Chimaera.
This really is my kind of performance car – the suspension takes the edge off mountain switchbacks rather than pummelling them (and your backside) into submission, and the engine relies on mid-range thump rather than forced induction to eat up the straights. MG always marketed the ZT as a sports saloon, but think of it as a shrunken Jaguar XJR or Bentley Turbo R and you’ll understand its appeal entirely.
Barely 150 miles later, having wound my way over the Llanberis Pass, flicked past Caernarfon and given it one last blast along the dual carriageway hugging the North Wales coastline, and I’m hooked. I’ve always loved the ZT’s fabulously convoluted development story – adopting another carmaker’s V8 rather than improving its own, and re-engineering it so that all the power goes to the back rather than front, so effectively it’s a Triumph Dolomite in reverse – but now I’m won over by the car itself. The only real drawback is the fuel consumption; drive it as it deserves to be driven and realistically
’I could almost swear that I’m driving a four-door TVR Chimaera’