MG ZT VS Alfa Romeo 159

I know i'm putting my head in the lions mouth here, but I watched the Top Gear Re-run where Clarkson drives, enjoys and makes fun of the MG ZT V8....A car that Rover converted from front drive to rear drive with almost no money...and made a damned good job of..somehow.

I've never heard a bad word about the MG ZT in nearly all of its guises, and most of the road tests were very complementary. Fast, good handling, good brakes, well made, comfortable, good looking. Some good engines, some not so good.

So.......it did just about all of the things a 159 does...just years earlier.

Just give me a moment to climb into my body armour before you reply....crash helmet on as well

AlfaLincs

All I will say is, the V8 MGZT is the only MG I would consider buying. Even then I would probably buy something else. But each to their own.

Don't know much about the car, but I'd say two things:

1. It looks terrible
and
2. I wouldn't pay too much attention to "reviews" by TopGear. Funny they may be, but not much else

I'd have an MG ZT V8 but they aren't all that quick considering its got a throbbing big V8 under the bonnet. A mildly tweaked GTA should give it a run for its money.

I agree with Pud-4litre V8 only puts out 260hp,maybe the old rover chassis couldn't handle any more power,although Rover always promised one with more power,but went bust before they got round to it.Maybe they should have concentrated on replacing the primeval 200 and positively neanderthal 400 rather than waste money on the pointless MG SV etc.BTW,it was pretty simple to convert the MG to rear drive,as the original Rover 75 was designed to accomodate 4 wheel drive,so the bodyshell already incorporated a transmission tunnel etc.

They really should have replaced the 200 and 400, not just facelifted them and badged them 25 and 45..

Thats what saw Rover off I reckon. The MG SV is an awesome looking beast but it wouldn't have saved Rover if they sold 10,000 of them.

As the 159 Q4 is 4-wheel drive, surely making a RWD 159 wouldn't be that hard then?

BF. Looks are subjective, and a lot more liked than disliked the looks. I love the ZT, but I love the 159 as well.

If it were only Top Gear who complemented the car I'd agree, but everybody did, and not just the V8. The V6 got tremendous write ups for its brakes steering and handling in the vast majority of road tests, and the BMW Diesel engined version is acknowledged as the best (just as many acknowledge the Alfa 2.4 diesels as the best all round engines)

The 360 bhp ZT was contracted out to Prodrive to develop..who made a complete hash of it, and lost interest. It was taken back in house to start again, but time and bankruptcy beat them. Two ZT 360s do exist and they are almost complete, and they are apparently utterly evil to drive, unlike the 260. going to RWD did require quite a lot of rework to make space for the diff, but yes, having a tranny tunnel helped a lot.

What I liked too was the fact that the ZT really was an engineering sports upgrade, with rubber bushes being replaced by aluminium in the subframes, the springs/dampers 70% stiffer than the Rover 75, the brakes much bigger, plus the extra power etc etc. It wasn't just a badge engineering job.

My mate's is great, and I love them in red.

AlfaLincs

The problem with the ZT was that nothing
could hide it's Rover 75 origins.

The 75 just wasn't a good looker.
Reminded me of a cheap Jag knock-off.

Originally Posted by Nev

The problem with the ZT was that nothing
could hide it's Rover 75 origins.

The 75 just wasn't a good looker.
Reminded me of a cheap Jag knock-off.

And what was wrong with the 75? everybody who has owned one speaks very highly of them (apart from 1.8 head gasket problems)

What upset Ford was the 75 being BETTER than the Jag in many respects and a lot less money. If you read into the history of the 75 project it was beset by none of the problems you usually associate with British cars. It was just such a shame the company was being run by people who had no intention of it having a future, BMW refusing to allow sporting variants, then the Phoenix four taking all the money out of the company for their own private fortunes.

If you compare what the design teams achieved with how little money. it makes Alfa look like a spoiled brat with a rich uncle keeping it afloat.

As I said before I like the looks of both cars, and no recent Alfa until the 159 has matched the handling/brakes/ride of the ZT which has an outstanding chassis. It made the contemporary 156/166 chassis look like amateur productions with their squeaks, poor bump response, failing bushes, and over complicated geometry....which were worse than the 164 they replaced.

AlfaLincs

THe MG ZT was an ok car - I would not buy one as the V8 was way to lazy only giving out 260BHP.

Now the SV was an althogether different story.

The problem I had with the 75 and the later MG's were that they suffered (possibly unfairly) from an "Old Mans car" Image. The later MG's also look like they had lots of Halfords accessories bolted on.

Even though underneath all of the fake wood/Dodgy spoilers they are probably quite good cars.

BMW made things difficult for Rover in many ways.For instance they didn't want a sports version of the 75 as it might steal sales from the 3-series,so they insisted the front indicators were at the minimum legal hieght,so the car couldn't be lowered,Thats why Rover had to re-do the front of the MGs.

Not just that with BMW. Rover had designed the sunroof aperture with a visible seam. This was not acceptable to BMW who insisted no seam should be visible. The redesign delayed the car and cost £1million to no real improvement.

Call it German perfectionism if you like. I'd call it something else. Either way it was probably £1m that could have been better spent elsewhere.

And at the launch of the 75 Bernd Pichtesrieder of BMW demolished the morale of the Rover team by using the launch to attack the government for not providing more subsidy, and questioning the value of keeping the place going.

The motoring press were frankly amazed at him doing such a knife job on his own staff, and doing a pretty good torpedo job on the launch of the flagship car.

Its a bit like launching the 159 TI and announcing the closure of Pomigliano as a by the bye.....if you follow my drift.

AlfaLincs

I remember a (think it was top gear) magazine report with the 166 against the rover 75 amongst a few others, at around 1999. The 75 came last while the 166 if i can recall was 2nd behind the 5 series.

The standard 75 is hardly the same car as the rear drive ZT i know but something i remember from a while back

I havn't the faintest idea what they are, but it would be intriguing to compare production figures of the Rover 75 (perhaps including the MGs) to those of the 166.

I'd say it was unfair to compare the 75 with the 166. You'd compare a Rover 75 with a Lancia for sure, but against the 166 it would have to be an MG ZT variant...maybe the V6 190 BHP model.

AlfaLincs

Originally Posted by BigFoot

2. I wouldn't pay too much attention to "reviews" by TopGear. Funny they may be, but not much else

Gave the Massa a bad review did they ????

The ZT (75 based car) scored in the top 10 of the AutoExpress Driver Power survey

Only problem is getting panels if you bump one !!! Mate of mine had an accident, took 3 months to get the parts.

There's a V8 down the road. Chap always stops to talk when I'm cleaning our Alfa's and says he loves our taste in cars

Aye! I liked the 75 a lot... I sometimes wondered if it would be the natural replacement for my 155.

It's a pity they did the v8 in Rover only and not MG flavour, or I may have had one!

I'm not too fussed about "just" 260bhp as those old Buick motors can squeeze out 400bhp if you just open the bonnet.



Ralf S.

Ralf,

They did do a V8 MG. I think it was called the ZT260. Also, the engine was not the 'Buick' one of old, but came from the Ford Mustang.

Sorry to be pedantic!

Simon

Originally Posted by howell811

Only problem is getting panels if you bump one !!! Mate of mine had an accident, took 3 months to get the parts.

Exact same happened to my mate with his ZR. We ragged a Ford Fiesta TDCi around for about 8 weeks while waiting for his ZR to come back.