The ute which deserves to reinvigorate its brand: 2026 MG U9 is a fitting flagship rival to the Ford Ranger, Toyota HiLux and Isuzu D-Max as the embattled Chinese ufaces off against BYD, Chery and GWM | Opinion

China’s MG is in dire need of reversing its slowing sales in Australia and although peak ute may have already passed, its savour deserves to be its new dual-cab ute.

Thankfully the MG U9 already has a lot going for it. It’s the Chinese carmaker’s first dual-cab ute in Australia, although it does share its underpinnings with the LDV Terron 9, which is another brand from Chinese state-owned SAIC Motor.

Compared to the Terron 9, the U9 is a much more premium-looking proposition but its price tag doesn’t reflect this.

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The entry-level Explore grade starts at $52,990 drive-away, and extends to $60,990 drive-away for the fully loaded Explore Pro. This will barely get you a mid-spec HiLux or Ranger.

It features a humongous grille and has a menacing presence that’ll make a HiLux or Ranger look small in comparison.

You’re almost guaranteed to get people craning their necks to get a look at what this ute is. It's certainly one way to get your brand back out on the forefront.

The U9 is also filled to the gills with high-end tech and finishes that ooze flash, which sets it above your everyday dual-cab ute. Depending on the trim there is a panoramic glass sunroof, large digital screens, digital rear-view mirror, plush leather seats with front-seat heating and ventilation, and a suede-like headliner.

This is before mentioning the wild electric-folding mid-gate which extends the tub into the cabin and allows you to carry items up to 2.4-metres long. It’s an extremely unique offering in the dual-cab ute market, though it does come at a hefty cost – $5490 extra, and it's only available on the top-spec U9 Explore Pro.

As standard however is rear multi-link suspension set-up which is much more passenger comfort-oriented than the typical leaf sprung ute. As a result payload is slightly down over other dual-cab utes.

Despite the fluff, it’s worth calling out the U9 still stacks up where it counts most. It has a four-wheel drive system with a low-range transfer case and, depending on the trim level, front and rear diff locks. It also has a segment-meeting 3500kg braked towing capacity.

However, like virtually every car, the MG U9 isn’t perfect. Although it’s only marginally larger than regular dual-cab utes, it certainly feels much bigger from behind the wheel, especially when doing tight manoeuvres in carparks or U-turns.

Additionally, the 2.5-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine has healthy outputs on paper of 160kW and 520Nm, but it feels lethargic in reality and needs to be pushed to keep up with traffic. It doesn’t help that the car defaults back to ‘Eco’ mode every time it’s switched on.

Even with this, I still achieved a rather disappointing average fuel consumption of 11.0L/100km during my urban driving testing. That’s not great, especially when you can get much less in the similarly-priced BYD Shark 6 plug-in hybrid ute.

Even with these flaws, the U9 is a more deserving and a much better flagship for the MG brand, especially from an Australian perspective given how popular utes are still, than the niche Cyberster electric convertible.

We’ll have to wait and see whether the Australian public latches onto the idea of the U9 but for now it’s a great step in the right direction of localising and understanding what a specific market needs and wants.