AN AMERICAN TOURING SCOTLAND IN AN ENGLISH CAR BUILT IN CHINA

In Dornbach, Scotland, Kitman walks past a modern MG and a Morris Minor, its distant relative. From left: Motoring through the Scottish Highlands; lobster traps in Dunbeath; taking on electrons at Gridserve; traversing the North Sea coast.

- Jamie Kitman

YOU'D THINK THE SIGHT of a new MG might attract more attention, whether it was spied carving up the winding roads of rural Scotland or whizzing down the back streets of the country's capital city, Edinburgh. Once one of the United Kingdom's most successful exports and synonymous with sports car, an MG would turn the heads of every small-town Scot and even a few sheep. As we passed through quaint burghs large and small in our MG4 EV Trophy Extended Range, hardly anyone looked up.

Modern MGs are not the Morris Garages cars of old. The Chinese state-owned carmaker Nanjing Automobile purchased the storied brand in 2005 before merging with current owner SAIC Motor (also state controlled) in 2007. Made in China, MGs are now commonplace in Europe, having racked up substantial sales across the Continent and throughout the British Isles. This inexpensive electric SUV is one that strikes terror in the hearts of Western automakers and legislators. But the Scots we drove past were nonplussed.

While the modern MG lacks the romance and emotional appeal of its forebears, our experience driving more than 1500 miles in this electric version suggests that when it comes to affordable and reliable transportation, competing carmakers' worries about Chinese EVs are well founded. This MG4 is not a beauty or even a cutie. Its design is overwrought yet somehow boring in the modern compact-SUV vein, and its interior fittings hark back to another era in their utter iffiness. But for the price, it's startlingly all right.