MG LATEST NEWS

Lotus Engineering is working with a number of clients in the fast-expanding Chinese and Indian markets, including helping the Nanjing Automobile Corporation relaunch the MG sports car. Nanjing bought the rights to MG cars for £53m together with MG Rover's production equipment when the British carmaker collapsed in April last year.Lotus opened a dedicated Chinese office three years ago and plans to open a similar office to serve clients in India in the next six months.

Nanjing Automobile Corp. is set to revive the old English Rover marque by starting to produce MG Rover engines this month, reported Shanghai Daily. According to the report, the company plans to manufacture 1.8-liter, 1.8-liter turbo, and 2.5-liter V6 engines on MG assembly lines this month.

17/10/06

Longbridge could see the rebirth of the Austin brand with the factory playing a key role in the development of the next generation of MG Cars, the company's Chinese owners have insisted. Nanjing Automobile Corporation (NAC) has begun work on three new models which it hopes to launch by the end of 2008. The models, which will include a new small car for China, a medium car for Europe and a medium car for the US market, could be badged as Austins, NAC said. James Lin, operations director for NAC at Longbridge, said: "Longbridge will be the design and innovation centre for the new models. We have to understand the feeling of European people; it is impossible to just stay in China and design cars. "We have already got a budget for a vehicle engineering centre, and this will play a very important role.

29/9/06

Nanjing will seek 90 MG dealers for UK market, says US partner
Speaking at an automotive industry conference in Detroit yesterday, Mr Duke Hale, head of MG Cars North America/Europe Inc, said that the MG TF Roadster will be sold through a 90-strong dealer network in the UK, after test models are produced early next year. Importers are to be sought for major Western European markets, and Mr Hale, who has signed a memorandum of understanding with MG Rover’s new owner Janjing Automobile, confirmed plans to re-launch the MG sports car brand in the US in mid-2008.
Nanjing Automobile Corp aims to celebrate its 60th birthday next year by having the first Chinese-built MG car roll off its brand-new assembly line, Deputy Chairman Lu Zhenxin told Reuters. "March 27, 2007 will be the 60th anniversary of Nanjing Automobile Corp, so we made a decision that the first MG car will be produced on this date in this factory," he said in an interview on the sidelines of a trade fair in Frankfurt. The Chinese group bought debt-laden MG Rover out of bankruptcy last year and is now building a factory in Nanjing able to make 200,000 MG cars and 250,000 engines a year. The Nanjing plant will offer welding, painting, assembly, engines and gearboxes, Lu said, with some vehicles then sent to the former MG Rover plant at Longbridge in the Midlands for final welding, painting and assembly. "We are trying to resume production in Longbridge with the original equipment. The first product we will launch is the MG TF (roadster)," he said, estimating that output there would resume in the first half of next year. Work stopped in Longbridge on April 8, 2005. Nanjing would focus on quality, costs, price and its 60 years of tradition to make MG a success. "I believe we can make products that are both cheap and good," Lu said, adding technical improvements and service were also key. Nanjing's professional advisers have told it can expect to sell 150,000 to 200,000 cars a year, he said. Duke Hale, MG Motors boss, said that while no U.S. dealers had yet to be licensed MG was creating initial distribution plans targeting larger American metropolitan areas.
"Based upon our sales ambition and based on where we think our product line will be, we think we need to be looking at a dealer body thats about 300, up to 350 dealers," Hale stated.

The companies include Jiangsu Province Government Property Management, Jiang Ing, and Nanjing New Technology and Economic Development. But despite the apparent dilution, sources said NAC would remain in the driving seat .A source said: "This group has been put together to ensure NAC can raise the money it needs to reliance MG. It gives the enterprise a bigger scale. But NAC will control the board and management." Nanjing Automobile Corporation has set up a £120 million holding company to oversee the development of its own-brand cars based on MG technology.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Nanjing Automobile Group has set up a 1.8 billion yuan (119 million pounds) unit to oversee the development of its own-brand cars based on technology bought from failed car maker MG , state media said on Tuesday. Nanjing Auto will hold 22.22 percent of the new subsidiary -- set to roll out its first self-developed car by March next year -- with six other local firms sharing the remainder, the official Shanghai Securities Journal said, citing unnamed sources.

MG is coming UK before it takes on the world! and now we can reveal that the British-built TF roadster will go on sale in the UK ahead of any other country. Assembled at the Nanjing Automotive-owned plant at Longbridge, the TF will arrive at dealers here next summer before being offered in other markets later in 2007. A hard-top coupé version made in the US will join the line-up in 2008, along with three Chinese-built saloons based on the ZR and ZT platforms.

Nanjing Automobile Corporation has waived the break clause in its 33-year lease on part of the Longbridge car plant in the West Midlands. Under a deal signed in February with the developer St Modem Properties, Nanjing agreed to lease part of the former MG Rover site but the agreement included a clause allowing the Chinese carmaker to end the lease within six months. The escape clause expires today. Nanjing would have had to give 14 days' notice if it had wanted to exercise it and both companies have confirmed that no such notice has been given. That raises the intriguing prospect that Nanjing and Shanghai may be battling for a share of their domestic market, using two of Britain's best known car brands. While Nanjing has the MG name, SAIC is negotiating with BMW to buy the rights to the Rover name.

Duke T. Hale is the newly appointed president and chief executive officer of MG Cars North America/Europe, Inc. With more than 30 years in the U.S. auto industry, working for domestic as well as European and Asian brands, Hale is well-known in the business. Now living in Georgia, Hale started his auto career in 1973 with Ford after his graduation from Ball State University in Indiana. He also worked for Chrysler. In the 1980s he went to Volvo, after which he worked at Mazda and Isuzu. Most recently, Hale headed Lotus Cars and Lotus Engineering, two separate U.S. companies.
17/8/06

be sold under the MG brand-name.

Hale told Edmunds. com: 'Right now, Nanjing is looking to build three sedans [saloons] in China. For lack of another description, they'll be small, medium and large. In the UK, we will build a modified version of the MG TF roadster. In Ardmore, Oklahoma, we will produce a coupe variant of the roadster. Those will be the products initially& The roadster will launch first in the UK and the rest of Europe in the second or third quarter of 2007. The coupe won't be built until 2008. The US will have nothing to sell until May-June of 2008, when the roadster will be here also.'
He added that exports to Europe of all the Chinese-built saloons (one of which will be a version of the ZT/ Rover 75) are planned, but US sales of these have not yet been decided. Hale went on to say that assembling the TF at Longbridge was an important part of the plan: 'You expect it to be British. It's what MG is known for. Second, we are also committed to the UK. We're truly committed to jobs in manufacturing, sales, marketing and distribution in the UK and Europe. We need a stronghold in Europe of 100,000-130,000 vehicles a year.' However, the US base is also important; Hale is targeting the setting-up of up to 350 dealerships and said: 'You can think of creative ways that allow the business to be more efficient and profitable to the point that one might be able to build vehicles in Oklahoma nearly as cheaply as China.' Edmunds .com points out that Hale has partnered with a company that has a joint venture with the Chickasaw Nation to build business parks and trade centres on Indian territory - and thus access to tax exemptions and incentives under state and federal initiatives to develop Native American businesses. In a conference high on talk on strategy and philosophy but low on concrete detail, Nanjing did confirm that the car it is planning to build at Longbridge early next year will be a 'face lifted' MG TF roadster, to go on sale in the second half of 2007. The car will receive a modified engine which meets the Euro IV emissions standards; this engine will be made in China, where Nanjing is reconstructing the former power train production lines. The component kits will also be made in China. Nanjing also stated that it planned to start production of the reborn ZT in China in the first half of 2007, with sales starting there in the second half of next year. In a further contradiction, however, Jianwei said that reintroduction of this model to Europe will only happen if the company feels there is sufficient demand, as 'we need to do much work on these cars for the European market' (the press release says confidently that 'in 2008 it is expected that sales of the MG ZT range will resume in the UK'). Both TF and ZT are said, however, to 'offer significant enhancements compared to the previous MG Rover-produced cars,' though Jianwei refused to give further details, saying to one journalist at the press conference: 'If you want to know what we have done to the TF, you buy one and look under the bonnet.'