MG and Suzuki continue to fly the flag for small, well-priced hatchbacks that won’t cost a lot to run. Will Nightingale takes their latest fuel-sipping models on a road trip to see how they stack up in real-world use

Photography: John Bradshaw

Correct tyre pressures will help efficiency

Talk about leaving the door wide open. The decision by some big brands to abandon the conventional small car market and focus on SUVs has given smaller brands the perfect opportunity to waltz in and capitalise. After all, thousands of long-time Ford Fiesta and Kia Rio owners will eventually need a new car and might not want, or be able to afford, to make the jump to a Puma or Stonic.

MG hopes they’ll be tempted by its latest offering. Indeed, the Chinese-owned brand brazenly calls the new MG 3 a ‘conquest car’ – an industry term for a model designed primarily to steal sales from rivals rather than cater for existing owners seeking an upgrade. Like the old MG 3, the new one is a Fiesta-sized five-door hatchback, only this time around it’s no budget-focused Dacia Sandero competitor. It’s a full hybrid that promises strong performance and 64mpg fuel economy – although it still looks like fine value for money, undercutting the likes of the Skoda Fabia and Volkswagen Polo.

Mind you, on paper at least, you can enjoy the same spectacular fuel efficiency from a mild hybrid (don’t worry: we’ll explain the differences later). The new Suzuki Swift matches the MG’s official economy exactly and actually pumps out slightly less CO2 . It costs about the same to buy, too.

So, if you’re looking for parsimonious fuel consumption and low long-term running costs, which of these new small cars should you choose? To find out, we devised a road trip, starting at What Car? Towers in Twickenham, west London, and crossing the capital for a brief pit stop on the Isle of Dogs. That would give these hybrids the ideal environment in which to showcase their fuel-sipping talents. We’d then head out onto the motorway for an overnight stay in Great Yarmouth, before looping back to Twickenham via some more challenging country roads.

CROSSING THE CAPITAL

London is undoubtedly the most extreme urban environment we could throw at our protagonists. More than two million cars use the city’s streets on an average weekday, resulting in heavy congestion, continual stopstart traffic and journey times that could easily be bettered by a heavy smoker on a pushbike.