Cloned Rovers rolling out
New Rover "clone" cars are rolling off a production line in China today, two years after the famed Longbridge factory shut its doors.
Although they cannot use the Rover name, Chinese car-maker Nanjing Automobile can brand its cars MG and is making both the MG TF roadster and the MG7 saloon car based on the Rover 75.
A £180 million MG production line was inaugurated this week in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, where the car-maker was founded 60 years ago.
Musicians from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra performed at the event, with a video wall showing images of Tower Bridge and Buckingham Palace, while an upbeat Nanjing Automobile Corporation chairman, Wang Haoliang, said: "The acquisition of UK MG Rover Group has put NAC on the shoulder of a giant. We are confident we'll be able to revive the valuable MG Rover brand."
Bodywork
Nanjing Auto bought the collapsed MG Rover from administrators in a £53 million deal in the summer of 2005 and since then has transferred 5,000 containers of production equipment from Birmingham to equip the new factory in China.
The new MGs, each bearing the Union flag on their bodywork, will be priced between £11,800 and £26,300.
Nanjing Auto plans to reintroduce MG models in China and Europe, with a small operation at Longbridge employing 150 people assembling MG TFs. The Longbridge operation is due to start production in May or June, and could become an assembly base for exports to the rest of Europe.
The Chinese company is also planning production at an assembly line in Ardmore, southern Oklahoma, beginning next year. This expected to make a hard-top coupe version of the MG TF roadster.
Although production has now been launched, reports in China suggest Nanjing Auto has struggled to raise financing from local banks.
Earlier this month, Nanjing Auto asked China's government for "policy support" for a loan worth up to £200 million, for the company's expansion, according to the state-owned newspaper Shanghai Securities News. At this week's launch Nanjing MG general manager Zhang Xin said the company was prepared to sell as much as a 50 per cent stake to outside investors to fund its expansion.
