There are cars, and then there are concept cars that seem to scoff at such trivial earthly concerns as parallel parking. Enter the MG EXE181: the latest piece of automotive audacity from the creative minds at SAIC Design Advanced London, a machine so gloriously sleek and boundary-pushing that it’s bagged the prestigious iF DESIGN AWARD for 2025’s Concept Vehicle category—and probably would bag every stretch of curb between your local high street and the Bonneville Salt Flats if anyone was foolish enough to drive it there.
Unapologetically inspired by MG’s original “roaring raindrop” EX181, a land speed icon of the late 1950s (and bona fide Bonneville record-breaker at over 250 mph), the EXE181 is not your cousin’s crossover. It’s MG’s birthday present to itself—a centenary showpiece that, in the words of Advanced Design Director Carl Gotham, channels the “daring and innovative” spirit of MG’s past while suiting up for a zero-emission, rotor-driven future. In short: it’s a 21st-century cannonball, only with more kilowatts and fewer piston rings.
If you suspect this single-seat aerodynamic dart would be a challenge to squeeze between shopping trolleys at Tesco, you’re not wrong. With its obsessive devotion to airflow, efficiency, and outrageous presence, the EXE181 barely leaves room inside for the driver, let alone your awkward weekly shop. And while parallel parking is never mentioned in the press materials, one look at its elongated silhouette and you know: this is a car designed for one thing only—speed, not small-town parking lots.
But there’s method to the melodrama. The design team—even as they unleashed their wildest sci-fi instincts—did roll up their sleeves for “a series of aerodynamic tests” and kept the cockpit a single seater. (You’ve only yourself to blame for getting stuck at the car park exit with this one.) Gotham calls it “a pure concept vehicle devised to excite,” which is designer code for “you’re not actually supposed to drive it down to Sainsbury’s”.
Hats off, too, to MG for making electric motoring “fun, useable, and affordable”—most notably with the launch of the more practical MG Cyberster, also penned by this daring design team. But rest assured, if the EXE181 ever did hit public roads, its footprint would be less “family hatchback” and more “parking enforcement officer’s worst nightmare”.
The EXE181 might not fit in your driveway (or your wildest parking-related anxieties), but that’s exactly the point. It’s a rolling sculpture. It’s what happens when car designers are let off the leash and told to shock, inspire, and chase digital speed demons rather than jockey for a spot outside the chippy. Looks like a bugger to park? Absolutely. But who cares—just so long as you look this good not doing it.
