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MG ZR ZS ZT Technical - Daily Telepgraph praise ZT

Nice half page on the back of the Daily Telegraph Motoring section today praising the ZT and the ZTT.

The only this they found to complain about was those truly grizzly Kenwood radios- and who would argue with that?

Cheers

Patrick
Patrick Beet

Patrick

You beat me to it!!

Good article - I wont 'cut & paste' it as I am tad over 7 years of age and besides I dont want to destroy the paper.

Ted
Ted Newman

Is article on the internet electronic version (what section?), for those of us who live abroad please?
antoine

What's with the Kenwood radio? The standard unit I have in my ZT was the same as the standard 75 unit and they don't come simpler than that to operate, especially as it has the remote steering control.
Totally agree, though, brilliant car, fault free since day one and now at 18k miles and 8 months.
Martin

The Kenwood unit in my new ZS is a *radio-cassette* - I ask you , who still uses tapes, even I have all my favourite stuff on CD. IMO this is likely to put many prospective buyers off, a marketing blunder in my eyes.
David

The article was on the back page of todays Daily Telegraph Motoring Section - for some reason or other they (the DT) dont seem to publish these pages on the web - I may be wrong, could just be me!

Ted
Ted Newman

just as well they don't publish on the web - he was unnecessarily rude about the MG Montego again...
David

Martin,

The Kenwoods are not in the 75 (yet.....?). If your car has the fitted radio out of the 75 then you can rest assured that it is not a Kenwood. In some of the ZTs they have saved money by removing the nice fitted unit and adding a Din slot into which they insert the world’s ugliest car radio. It is covered in nasty little buttons and garish colour LEDs, I truly repellant pustule on the otherwise pretty 75 facia.

Not that I feel strongly about this you understand!

Cheers

Patrick
Patrick Beet

Even after very favourably discounting my ZS, when I mentioned that I'd like to have the single slot CD instead of the tape cassette base unit, to clinch the deal I got this upgrade for ...... zilch. Despite the fact that most of this dinosaur's stuff IS still on tapes ..... family wanted one of these new fangled CD thinggies ...LOL.

I too read the Motoring Torygraph back page item and noticed the inaccuracy of this usually unbiased Motoring writer's efforts (Stephen Bailey). Couldn't resist the opportunity to have that aged cliche dig at the ol' Montego could he? .... Inaccurate because an MG Montego Taxi in the S West was widely reported in most newspapers (possibly even his) some years ago as having completed a third of a million miles on the original engine and transmission .... all it needed was a bearing and clutch during that time. NOT that unusual this sort of thing.

Until a few years ago, the Taxi Rank at Gloucester Railway station was served by a fleet of white cars, nearly all Montegos. Got talking to some of their drivers occasionally and they too reported bullet proof reliability, huge mileages, very low running costs and great economy.

What do journalists hope to achieve with perpetuating these inaccuracies ..... sell more newspapers ... no chance ... plonkers.
J McFeely

Tried to scan it but the Telegraphs print quality is so poor, I can't OCR.
Michael Watkins

>> The Kenwood unit in my new ZS is a *radio-cassette* <<

My ZS has a single slot CD and being of a generation that regards anything by Kenwood, Alpine, Blaupunkt or Pioneer as a far superior item than a cheap and nasty standard fit unit with huge idiot proof buttons and a diplay that can best be described as 'functional', i am quite impressed by MGRs approach to marketing (for the deal with Kenwood is surely that). Given the market the Zeds are aimed at (particularly the ZR) the deal with Kenwood is IMO one of the smarter moves MGR have done recently as there is nothing more likely to impress a prospective boy-racer than an ICE set up that will impress thier mates.

Ditched the standard offering on the F for a Pioneer set up and the ZS with a Kenwood system is likely to be spared this fate. Fact of the matter is, despite being a bit leary for some tastes and having buttons that are a tad small, it is still a better quality system than the usual 'Goodmans / Philips in disguise' rubbish most manufacturers pass off.

SF <-- Very pleased with the Kenwood system on his Z
Scarlet Fever

Talking of Kenwood they had an item about them on the TV the other night - what I dont understand is how you fix a food mixer into such a small slot, but I suppose it beats just a drinks holder.

Ted
Ted Newman

Car culture: Taking care of business
(Filed: 15/03/2003)


Having been scandalously neglected, MG is back in the land of the living, says Stephen Bayley



Jonathan Swift came to mind when I drove the MG ZT-T. "How fading and insipid do all objects accost us that are not conveyed in the vehicle of delusion!" This fast estate car is no delusion. Nor is it insipid, although it is a revelation. In aspect it has, perhaps, a bit too much of what Swift would call "false lights, varnish and tinsel", but here is that most surprising of things: a car that is very much better than you have any right to expect. And I mean very.

MG is one of the great brands, scandalously neglected by the various waves of stupefyingly inept management that presided over the late afternoon of British manufacturing. Denied any development funds, it staggered on like a frazzled old slapper until the woeful MG Montego proved that there are some cars even the mini-cab trade avoids. Then it died. Now MG is back in the land of the living somewhat dangerously.

The MG tradition is founded on the almost mystical reverence which the cars acquired in the United States after the Second World War when the GI Bill put cash in the hands of the de-mobbed. MG was one of the first companies to resume manufacturing after 1945 and its sports cars became an expression of freedom and soon evolved into the very first youth cult. Americans speculated on what the initials stood for. Some wags said Mo Ginsberg, in a stylish reference to the assumed ethnicity of all importers. But Monkey Glands was another favourite that was nearer the essence: compared to even the best domestic product, say a Ford V8 (85mph, 0-60mph in 20 seconds), the little MG had thrilling performance: a nimble marmoset rather than a limping jumbo.

But that was not to last. The rallentando of false hopes, political interference, bad design and penny-pinching that ended in industrial oblivion began long before the lights started going out in the Midlands. MG became part of the British Motor Corporation in 1952 and thereafter ownership went like pass-the-parcel through the state, British Aerospace and, ultimately, to BMW before the present management acquired the company in an atmosphere that smelt very strongly of burnt German fingers. There is something both touching and inspiring about the current resurrection although in fact, the MG story has been one of continuous deaths and rebirths: brand-wise it has been a bit of a fiction since 1929 when Cecil Kimber's romantic Morris Garages (close to Oxford's Magdalen College) moved to a drear factory in Abingdon.

Still, fiction - like all delusions - is enjoyable. The MG ZT and the ZT-T (the awkwardly named estate car) are based on the Rover 75, a car developed under BMW's stewardship and designed to the demanding brief that, whatever it may be, it must not be a BMW. Since a BMW is more or less what the entire world wants, it is surprising that so paradoxical a creative process led to such a pleasant car. The 75 has a Bentley's comfort and handsomeness, although it was spoiled by drab colours and indifferent nose and tail detailing. MG called in Peter Stevens to fix that and with its garish colourways and Southend-on-a-Saturday-night addenda these identity problems no longer exist, although the sensitive might argue that they have been replaced by others. The interior is as though Dan Dare had been tripping, but gets alpha plus for effort and only one grade less for delight.

Despite Stevens' credentials and his dripping syringe of monkey glands, the ZT-T's looks are its least impressive possession. Instead, it is the working parts. The top-of-the-range, four-cam V6 is a glorious engine, as sonorous and lovable as an Alfa's. Through a beautifully precise gearbox (sourced from the Fatherland) it powers this bulky car in an extremely satisfying style. Torque steer is not evident and there is a nice sense of precision about all the other controls, both major and minor. The only three negatives are a jiggly ride that makes smoothness difficult in town; a ridiculously fiddly Kenwood stereo which is a travesty of good design and the fact that my brake foot kept snagging something on its way to the pedal (although this may be the fault of my clunky J.M. Weston split-toe Oxfords rather than MG).

The ZT-T's doors close with all the familiar quality metaphors, although on the whole it feels just a tad more flimsy than a German car, although not much. Still, with tiny budgets, MG has made an appealing and convincing product that - appearances excepted - needs no apology and wins immediate and powerful advocacy from anyone who has tried one. Only the lazy or complacent would not experiment before buying a German or Swedish alternative.

"The mind of man," Swift also explained, "when he gives the spur and bridle to his thoughts, doth never stop, but naturally sallies out into both extremes of high and low." The ZT-T is not a particularly practical estate car, but nor was the 1947 TC a particularly rational transport solution. In its idiosyncratic way, the one recaptures the essence of the other: they are both high points in MG's rocky story.


Tatty ( Non-member since 2003 )
Tatty

Andy,

I confess I am with Ted. The brand name Kenwood only makes me think of food mixers that my mother used. When stuck on a car radio I assume is carefully handcrafted in the same factory that Dixons uses for their Mitishu (sp?) range. I have heard of Alpine, Pioneer and Sony, but Kenwood in the same breath - surely not. One of the things that put me off the TF was the thought that MGR had found a radio even cheaper than the one in the F!

I am of the age that measures a radio's quality by how clearly it plays Radio 4 rather than its ability to emulate an Earthquake with its bass, so maybe I am missing something.

The Kenwood may indeed be "good" but it is a truly terrible piece of product design. The 75 has an Alpine radio and that has buttons that are about human size, are few in number and reasonably logical (i.e. only need to read the manual once!). Compare and contract with the Kenwood.....

Perhaps the boys in Kenwood should look at their mixer for inspiration for their radio. The mixer only has a single dial to control it - marvellous - so logical you did not even need to read the manual.

Cheers

Patrick



Patrick Beet

Unfortunately Patrick, terrible of not the Kenwood design is very contemporary. Visit your nearest in-car entertainment centre and you will be very surprised and probably a bit dissapointed mate. The Kenwood head units that MGR are specifying are by no means the top of the range but they are very good items when judged against thier peers and in this respect MGR shouold be praised for thier marketing strategy (make no mistake fitting Kenwood ICE to a car as standard is very definitely a marketing ploy - consider the market the ZR is aimed at...)

Personally i had a couple of teething problems with my Kenwood head unit in so far as i had to resport to glancing at the manual to descover how to alter the balance and fade. This is IMO a primary function and should have been more logical. Other than this i am very happy with it, sound quality alone knocks spots off of the standard head unit i had in the F.

SF
Scarlet Fever

Andy - presumably your single-slot CD was an extra - or was I done with a piece of old stock? The Kenwood radio-cassette in my ZS180 is a veritably nasty piece of work much as Patrick describes, when you go for the controls without taking eyes off the road ahead you are in the lap of the Gods, I went for volume and switched it off, also the left-most button is not actually a program button (just looks like one), so you cannot program radio1 on button1, 2 on 2, 3 on 3 etc. However my ICE consultant (aka eldest son) did say to add a CD changer to it rather than junk it altogether, he reckons as head units go it's pretty good quality.
David

I guess I am like Patrick, only I just want Radio 2, and to be able to flick between CD and rdaio or adjust volume without taking hands off the steering. I was offered the free upgrade to the Kenwood but I was told it didn't work with the steering remote, so I said I would happily take the standard head unit just as I had had in my 75. I would agree that the ZR market are probably keen on the Blackpool style illumination that seems so popular on head units now, but I think the ZT driver is probably less worried, and the 75 unit still looks much more cohesive in the ZT dash.
Martin.
Martin

Ah well! I swapped the Kenwood single-slot CD in my ZR with the MG branded casette from my F! Why - Coz like others the buttons on the Kenwood are so small, numerous and difficult to operate without looking down to the radio that I put the simpler F unit into the ZR. It has an easy to operate twirly button to operate the volume and few large buttons. With the radio mounted so low on the ZR it is sensible to have the simpler radio in it. The Kenwood is more bearable in the F as the position is closer to the eye line, and it is far easier to see the buttons without having to look away so much.

Only thing is that I can now tell how cr@p the standard F speakers are, and methinks they will have to be upgraded!

Andy

Andy

What baffles me is why they ask Alpine to design a nice quality head unit for the 75/ZT range and yet still use another manufacturer for other models? And why we're on the subject the Alpine Unit which also houses Sat/Nav controls only comes with a slot for this thing you call a cassette and a 6 disc not so multi-changer that has used every spare mm of space in my glove box..?! I had a Sony Minidisc head unit with 10 disc changer with CD Text, custom file etc etc in my last Rover which i now can't install because of the Sat/Nav controls. I could live with the the fact of only having a six disc changer but the cassette player rather than Minidisc option is a little disappointing in a car that cost over £20K. P.S Apart from these silly little anoyances I have no other complaints about my ZT, it's so far been a very enjoyable car. PPS There's a small gathering of Rovers and Z's happening at Bluewater Shopping Mall in kent on the 6th of April if anyones interested in meeting up there.

Steve
Steve Tyler

I suspect the Alpine deal was done by BMW when they had stewardship of the Rover marque. IIRC the R75 Alpine sat nav system is the same as a Beemer 5 series.

Enter MGR and the newer Z cars, who knows why they didn't expand the Alpine deal to include the other Zeds, but there was obviously a reason (probably BMW putting the kibosh on it IMO) and therefore they had to buy head units form another source.

Incedentally, Kenwood electronics are not the same company as Kenwood kitchen as far as i can tell, websites are as follows:

>> http://www.kenwood-electronics.co.uk/ << (radios)
>> http://www.kenwood.co.uk/clever/index.html << (kitchen)

Kenwood kitchen has a different logo too, the K is highlighted in red, whereas Kenwood audio has the W highlighted in red.

SF
Scarlet Fever

the K is highlighted in red, ,,, I though that was a corn flake company....
Ted Newman

Well, you could use a Kenwood to process cornflakes, but i think you'll struggle with a kenWood! ;-)

SF
Scarlet Fever

Rice crispies would probably give static of the snap, crackle and pop variety.









I'll get my coat.
Rob Bell

This thread was discussed between 15/03/2003 and 20/03/2003

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