JustBritish

MG Motor UK at Longbridge, UK is to be opened up for guided site tours. Visitors will be given the chance to see the history of the site and all the latest technology side by side.

The guided tour will take around two hours. Participants will visit Lord Austin’s office, moved many years ago but still let up as it was when he was still alive, and the MG Museum.

Visitors will also be shown inside the huge state-of-the-art Technical Centre where 300 engineers work on new MG cars and components. In the Sales Centre the latest MG6 GT fastbacks and MG6 Magnette sports saloons are on view. .

The tour does not include the car production area at the moment, but it is hoped to include this in the near future.

B31 Voices will be going on the maiden tour this coming Thursday.

Starting on Thursday 15th March, tours will operate every Thursday from 1pm. The visits are free and must be booked in advance.

Call 0121 251 6533 or e-mail: info@mgsalescentre.co.uk to book a free place.

Land Rover enjoyed a massive UK sales surge last month – with more than 3,000 vehicles sold.

The Solihull-based 4×4 manufacturer sold 3,044 vehicles in October compared to 1,864 in October last year, an increase of more than 63 per cent, figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) showed.

The sales rise followed a bumper September for Land Rover, with the company selling 6,230 vehicles compared to 5,788 in the corresponding month in 2010. October’s sales jump followed the success of the Range Rover Evoque and a general increase in the purchase of SUVs amid predictions of another harsh winter.

Jaguar saw sales dip slightly last month, with the Big Cat selling 713 cars in October compared to 806 in October last year. SMMT figures also showed that Longbridge-based MG Motor UK sold 15 sports cars last month against 16 in October 2010.

Yes, it is the the chance of a lifetime for MG fans – the opportunity to shape the final design of the next car which could be rolling off the Longbridge production line.

Hot on the heels of the successful launch of the MG6, the first all-new model made by MG Motor UK, came the debut UK sighting of the MG3 supermini. The car is already on sale in China but the British version is still under development and hopes are high that it could be assembled at Longbridge.
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The first all-new MG for 14 years has gone on show in China and by the end of next year the new car will be built on a production line at Longbridge, it was revealed today.

Based on the Chinese-made Roewe 550 – which itself is based on a shortened version of the old Rover 75 – it will be called the MG6 when production starts in Birmingham.

The new model will be produced in saloon and hatchback form and will complement the two-seater MGTF being built at Longbridge.

Early production models have been revealed at the Guangzhou Auto Show which opened yesterday.

The launch in China, the world’s largest automotive market, begins the international roll out of sales of the MG6 which includes the UK. Sales in China will begin in January and plans for the UK and other markets will be released during 2010.
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Chinese-owned MG Motor U.K., the British sports-car marque, is to halt production of its TF sports car for six months, not resuming until March next year. Sales of the low-volume sports car, the only vehicle now built at the once-massive Longbridge factory in England, have been slow through the year.

The midengine two-seat TF sports car started life as the MGF in 1995 and was Britain’s best-selling sports car for years. It’s now sold in limited numbers in the U.K. Just 265 were sold in the first nine months of this year, although September was the revived brand’s best month yet, with 65 TFs finding buyers. The company also has orders for all 50 copies of a new 85th-anniversary limited edition.

According to newly appointed sales and marketing director Guy Jones, the small-sports-car market is down 30 percent this year and 40 percent since 2007, and the end of the summer selling season helped make the decision to halt production. About 20 of the 100-strong vehicle assembly workforce will be laid off.
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Seen from Longbridge, MG Rover’s former base, the business’s industrial legacy five years on looks decidedly threadbare.

In one portion of the cavernous and almost deserted plant – once one of Europe’s largest – China’s Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, owner of the rump MG brand, began making its TF two-seater sports car last year in small numbers for the UK and Ireland, using Chinese and European parts.

The company will not comment on production volumes, but acknowledges they are modest. “It’s not MG Rover numbers – it’s a single model we’re producing,” says Peter Brooking, marketing manager for MG Motor UK.

Most MG cars are now made in China. In 2006, a year after buying rights to the brand from MG Rover’s liquidators, Nanjing Automobile Corporation moved an entire production line from Birmingham halfway across the world in 4,900 shipping containers.

SAIC, which has since taken over NAC, also bought rights to some Rover models, made now under the Roewe brand.

Notwithstanding the much-diminished output at Longbridge – or the thousands of jobs lost when MG Rover collapsed – other marques from its erstwhile portfolio are thriving under different ownership.

BMW has expanded annual production of the Mini to more than 200,000 cars, from only about 12,000 a year before the Munich carmaker bought it. It now employs about 3,500 people, from a few hundred when MG Rover owned it.

Norbert Reithofer, BMW’s chief executive, announced plans last week to bring production of two new models to the brand’s plant in Cowley near Oxford in a move expected to create 1,000 or more jobs.

Land Rover, sold to Ford Motor and then to Tata Motors last year, has arguably also fared better under a new owner. It recorded its highest sales yet in 2007, as Ford was selling it.

Sales figures have wilted over the past year – down 38 per cent in the first half of 2009 on a year ago – but together with Jaguar it remains one of Britain’s largest carmakers.

“There is a strong argument to say that even if you take into account the sad demise of MG Rover, the UK motor industry is much better off than it was,” says Paul Everitt, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.