Chinese-owned British brand MG Motors has been off to a great start in the Indian market as they launched their first vehicle -- the Hector SUV -- in the country. The SUV has been so famous in the Indian market that the company had to close the bookings for the vehicle for this entire year. The company has already received more than 28,000 bookings for their Hector SUV in the Indian market. Amid the high number of bookings, the brand recently produced the 5,000th unit of the Hector SUV in Indian. MG Hector takes on the likes of Tata Harrier, Mahindra XUV500, and Kia Seltos in India. The 5000th unit of the SUV was recently rolled out of MG’s Halol plant in Gujarat. The manufacturer sold 2,018 units of Hector in August which is pretty decent for a vehicle in the mid-size SUV segment. It’s likely that both the Tata Harrier and Mahindra XUV500 have lower numbers than the MG Hector in August 2019 given the sheer drop in car sales last month. Even in July 2019, the Hector outsold both the Mahindra XUV500 and Tata Harrier quite comprehensively.
The success of Hector has been so phenomenal that the brand had to shut down bookings for the SUV for the year 2019. The company has sold out its stock for the entire and year and initially failed to gauge the kind of demand that their SUV will create in the market. However, this comes as a blessing in disguise for the company as this fact will enable it to make some crucial changes to the Hector before the bookings for the SUV are reopened in the market. MG Motor wants to first service the current order backlog before taking additional bookings and the automaker currently has a capacity of 2,000 monthly units from its Halol factory in Gujarat. The brand is also working on increasing its production capacity by 50%.
Prices for the MG Hector start at Rs. 12.18 lakhs, ex-showroom Delhi. This is a very disruptive price by the brand as this figure undercuts the current segment leader and talk-of-the-town -- Tata Harrier. As is the case with Tata Harrier, the base model of the MG Hector is also loaded with features like dual front airbags, ABS + EBD, reverse parking sensors, Electronic Stability Control, traction control and hill-hold control. In addition, the top model of MG Hector also comes with several segment leading features like panoramic sunroof, heated ORVMs, rain-sensing wipers, powered tailgate, a 360-degree surround view camera, and 6-airbag system.
Talking about MG Hector, the Chinese-owned British brand’s SUV comes equipped with two engine options. The first is a 1.5L litre turbocharged petrol and the other a 2L Fiat Multijet turbocharged diesel, the latter being the same one found on Compass and Harrier. The outputs for petrol engine are 140 Bhp-250 Nm whereas the diesel engine is supposed to produce 170 Bhp of power and 350 Nm. MG is also offering a 48V hybrid system as an optional feature with the petrol variants. Also, the petrol variants also get 6-speed Dual Clutch Transmission as an option while a 6 speed manual is standard with all other engine options.