Weekend Drive by Hormazd Sorabjee: Caught red-handed
Last month, I drove the MG Cyberster at the Buddh International Circuit, which has quietly become the de facto venue for manufacturer test drives that need a controlled environment. EV brands love it — not because a racetrack flatters their cars, but because it makes logistics easy. You can limit the experience to a handful of laps, keep the running minimal, and top up the battery from the on-site charger. No worrying about range anxiety here.
The Cyberster’s scissor doors can be opened and closed with a button. It’s a cool party trick.
But here’s the thing: The Buddh Circuit also has a way of exposing a car’s weaknesses. And in the Cyberster’s case, it did so in a couple of laps. EVs and racetracks have never been a happy pairing. Like most electric sportscars, the Cyberster is too heavy and too softly sprung to truly shine on a race track.
Sure, the 0–100kph time of 3.2 seconds makes for a great headline, but after that, the power tails off. The top speed is just over 200kph, which, on Buddh’s kilometre-long stretch, feels pedestrian.
The roof folds away neatly in about 15 seconds.
The Cyberster’s appeal doesn’t live on the racetrack. It lives in your driveway, in traffic, at a five-star hotel porch, and in the heads it turns on every street. This is easily the best-looking sports car you can buy for ₹74 lakh, roof up or down. Speaking of the roof, it folds neatly away in about 15 seconds.
But the real party trick? Those doors. Scissor doors, the kind Lamborghini immortalised with its iconic Countach in the 1970s. In the world of exotic cars, door-design is part of the peacock display. Butterfly doors, for example, are the signature of the Pagani, Koenigsegg and McLaren P1. The Mercedes 300SL’s gullwing doors carry such mystique that makes this model one of the most sought after classics.
The Cyberster has not only democratised scissor doors but arguably improved them. In a Lambo, you need long arms and a bit of a heave to pull them down manually. The MG? Just press a button on the centre console and both doors power open or close. In one stroke, MG has brought the sort of driveway theatre previously reserved for ₹5-crore-plus hypercars to a wider audience.
The car doesn’t have a temperamental clutch, and doesn’t overheat in traffic, unlike other sportscars.
The Cyberster also has none of the daily-driving histrionics of traditional sports cars. No temperamental clutch, no overheating in traffic. Just smooth, silent progress. It’s comfortable enough to use every day — provided you watch out for speed breakers.
At ₹74 lakh, the response to the Cyberster has been healthy, especially for something that’s a full import. Originally, MG had considered producing the car locally to bypass India’s punishing import duties, but the roof mechanism was too complex to assemble locally. Had they managed it, the price could have dropped to around ₹60 lakh ex-showroom — a figure that would have made scissor doors genuinely within reach.
In the end, the MG Cyberster isn’t the kind of sports car you take to a track day. It’s the kind you take everywhere else. It’s about drama, presence, and the smugness of getting Lamborghini-style doors at less than a tenth of the cost.
From HT Brunch, September 27, 2025
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