And you lot all seemed convinced it would never happen... this car has been a long time in development, and closely resembles the Roewe W2 concept. I said on the boards a few months back it would happen because the 75 production line at Longbridge is still pretty much intact amazingly!

It is derived from the ill-fated RDX60 platform, which Rover were developing to replace the 45 for 2006 (this platform included a saloon, hatchback, sports hatch and tourer). The Roewe 550 (badged as the MG 550 in Chile and some other places iirc), which is also derived from the RDX60 platform but shares more of the Rover 75 underpinnings, has been selling like hotcakes in the Asian and pacific markets it has been available in for the past couple of years.

So for all those that said the £120million loan that the government denied MG-Rover to secure the SAIC merger deal, would see no further car production at Longbridge, and be a waste of money, well it looks like the long-term intention was always there.

Now lets keep our fingers crossed for future production of the MG3 and MG7 (Rover 75) replacement!! The TF2 will almost certainly be built there. Contrary to what the likes of Jeremy Clarkson et al like to say, what remains of Longbridge is still larger than Cowley, and if BMW rekon they could knock out 400k Mini's a year there, then Longbridge could quite easily match that, so there is still plenty of scope for a long and bright future!!

MG UK Official Press Release

Really is good looking. Finally.... a new modern family car thats better looking than EVERYTHING being built by BMW, Vauxhall, Ford etc...

And its going to be built in the UK.

Hell, Im biased....but MG ARE BACK BABY.. DEAL WITH IT

Maybe the badge at the front should be a tad smaller though hmmmm..

Lol, im guessing they will be announcing the engine specs next year, as production of the N-Series (uprated K-Series) is supposedly ending next year, atm the engine range in China is looking like the 1.8 Turbo and the 2.5 KV6... but neither of these engines will be good for emissions in the EU and they have had a replacement unit in development for quite some years now.

They need to source a diesel lump as well for a proper EU return imho, as they never continued development of the G-Series (dervs arnt a big market in China) though it was only months away from completion, so maybe, just maybe. The L-Series could never feasibly be used again, no matter how good it was.

The Roewe 550 is rumored to become the MG5 as the 550 is essentially the direct replacement for the Rover 45, though nothing official on that, there were rumors the Austin or Morris brand could be re-introduced to replace Rover, but I can't see much logic behind that, better to stick with just MG imho.

And just for you Craig...

i likey

That looks nice. Although not impressed by the similarities with every other hatchback.
I think the only worries are what have been the little bugbear since it's inception - strikes, mismanagement, inconsistant quality standards and general 'englishness'.

Well, Ive received word from someone who works at Longbridge couple a days a week (placement). There are apparently no British workers, all Chinese.

The car, as informed by Mr Matthew, is based on a Rover 75 platform, well modified one. As we know, the 75 was a ridiculously well built car, so hopefully that will be incorporated into the new model.

All Chinese at Longbridge? Surely that's discrimination?

Im hoping its part of a plan to enforce production quality measures at first, then start employing local people over a set period of time.

But who knows

Despite the best efforts of Clarkson to rubbish Rover / MG when it was independant they did do some good stuff. But they were always too small to survive independantly and I have heard that they were really badly hamstrung by still having to pay license fees (of up to 10%! of pretax sale price) on any of the Honda tech that they still used- basically the whole 45 and parts of the 25 so they could never make enough money to regenerate themselves.

It's just a shame that they never merged with Honda way back before the BMW takeover......

So are we going to see a new set of MG dealers springing up again?

Not to mention the crippling costs of the M47 lump and many other components being used in the 75 as a result of the BMW ownership days.

That was why they developed in approx 9 months as opposed to the usual 4 - 6 year developments cycle of an engine, so they could get rid of the M47. They did try and license the Alfa JTD lump though the sums never added up.

The licensing costs related to the 45 was also the reason the RDX60 was so important to them, at last they would have been free of Honda and able to make profits on each car they sold... two out of three of their best selling cars, the 45/ZS and 75/ZT, never really made them the profits they needed. Had it not been for the ZR, they could have folded a lot sooner. Having said that though, they became independent, people gave them 18 months before they would be dead, so to last 5 years was pretty good going.

BMW ripped them to pieces in honesty, and literally left them for dead, they took the R30 (which became the BMW 1-Series), the MINI and even tried to take Powertrain and then make money on each K-Series, L-Series, T-Series and KV6 sold by MG-Rover, until the Phoenix consortium realised what they were upto and managed to save Powertrain for themselves. They were essentially on life-support once BMW were out of the loop.

It's a shame the deal with SAIC was never completed, they would have been saved, all the development work would have been completed and the company and its models would have looked very different come 2006. The sort truth of the matter is, that by 2005, they had run out of cash. But whereas nowadays, the government love to help "foreign" car manufacturers, back in them day's, the government didnt want to know because of the possible backlash from the public.



But here's to the future, hopefully some sort of mass-production will return to Longbridge over the next few years.

With regards the Honda merger, well when BMW took over, the original intention was to leave Rover and Honda to continue their collabaration... however, Honda felt the way that BMW took over was hostile and underhand, and they also found out very late on, having no idea any deal was about to happen until it was made public basically, and seen their arses to be blunt. I guess there was also a case of Honda not liking the fact they would essentially be helping a multi-national competitor like BMW, to make a profit out of their technology and developments etc.

There is already a new MG dealer network - the TF 135, 85A and LE500 have been getting produced at Longbridge (more a bolt together job though) and sold in the UK since 2007. Of course, with only one model to sell, the dealer network isnt as big as was first envisaged, not to mention poor sales of the TF thanks to a mixture of poor media interest in the model/company (though what little there has been, has been good), crappy UK weather drowning the market for convertible roadsters, the recession meaning people arnt buying cars in general, and the fact that you can get a second hand relatively low mileage TF160 for 1/4 of the price of a brand new TF135 and people are quite wise to that fact.

When Rhys had his TF, he said that Hardings of Parkgate were supposed to be becoming MG dealers, but they decided not to in the end. The nearest one is in Chester atm, but im quite surprised how large the network is, considering that thanks to the recession biting, they have not launched anything significant in the UK until now.

Good news eh. Lets hope no-one mucks it all up. At least MG still has some respect whereas most young people, who dont know the history of rover just consider them old peoples cars. Lets hope sales are good and they bring out some nice sporty proper cars.

I think that's the main thing to worry about.