only ever associated them with sports cars.
That's true, but the MG Maestro was a sports version of the Austin Maestro. A roadster was out of the question, I already had a wife and kid. Moreover, with 9 sec/100 km it was better than any MGB except maybe the GT. Yes, for me it was a sports car, especially since I moved to it from a Fiat 126.
Stellantis is a large car company that also produces cars in Poland. Unfortunately, the company has to save money because the last financial results were not so good. The first decisions have been made, e.g. Citroen is suspending car sales in Australia. Recently it sold less than 100 cars there every six months, which was less than, for example, Ferrari sells on this market.