The Cyberster roadster will arrive before 2024 as an affordable halo car for MG, and its final design has been outed in a series of patent filings from parent company SAIC Motor.
The two-seat electric sports car was previewed as an outlandish concept in 2021, which company bosses said was given the green light for production after receiving more than 5000 expressions of interest from potential buyers.
These latest images show just how far the design has come since that concept and indicate that the Cyberster – which will essentially serve as an electric rival to the likes of the Mazda MX-5 – is nearly ready for an official unveiling.
While the production car’s silhouette bears a visual relation to that earlier concept, it’s all change elsewhere, with a total redesign bringing the car into line with MG’s production models and rendering it compliant with global homologation rules. It sits higher than before, for example, the wheels are smaller and wrapped in chunkier tyres, the headlights are now uncovered and the gaping front grille panel has been swapped for what looks to be a subtler, decorative item, perhaps housing an array of sensors.
The cab-backwards profile remains, albeit in a less exaggerated form, and the Cyberster has lost its Union Jack-inspired rear lights to make way for a striking angular light bar and arrow-shaped brake light clusters.
It still looks to be a two-seater, however, and has donned some sort of folding rood for production, rather than sticking with the concept’s open-cockpit arrangement, but the prominent streamliners running from the headrests to the trailing edge of the boot lid are gone.
Despite the car appearing more or less undisguised in these renderings, still little is known about its powertrain, pricing or performance potential.