Longbridge in driving seat with MG

It is a sight not seen at Longbridge for more than three years – the rolling production track carrying a line of MG sports cars under construction.

It is a small start for MG's Chinese owners: a production team of just 55 workers are currently producing 47 cars a week.

Within the cavernous Longbridge factory just two lines are currently operating, but the Chinese companies behind MG – NAC and its bigger parent SAIC – have plans that will see all the production lines in operation by 2010.

At the moment a small 18-strong team is working on the production line, switching from trim to assembly on alternate days, working from 7.30am to 4pm.

They are making the first, bright orange, batch of MG TF LE500 special editions which will relaunch the famous motoring brand in more than 50 dealerships nationwide next month.

After the first 500 cars are made – and more than 400 have already been snapped up in advance by MG enthusiasts before the cars even hit the showrooms – the Longbridge factory will start making a standard MG TF sportster.

MG UK spokeswoman Eleanor de la Haye said the company was hoping to sell between 2,500 and 3,500 of the sports cars next year. "But I think that is conservative given the enthusiastic response we have seen so far," she continued. We are launching in the UK and Ireland next week, with a left-hand drive variant launching in Europe next year.

"I think sales of 4,000 cars would be a possibility by the end of 2009."

Nearly all the team now working on the cars are former MG Rover employees who lost their jobs, along with 6,000 colleagues, when the last major British-owned carmaker collapsed in April 2005.

Guy Hunter, from Selly Oak, was a 15-year Rover veteran. He has been back working for MG for the past two years as the new Chinese owners geared up for production. "The new cars have a much higher spec than the old ones," he said. "It's great to be back here making them again. We've been waiting a long time to get to this point."

The only woman on the production line, Lisa Ponter from Bromsgrove, is another Rover veteran. She worked 13 years in the sewing room, making the MG's canvas soft-tops, and then five years on the line.

"It was a bit strange coming back," she said. "It was a bit empty with so many people missing. But I am working with a lot of the people who were with me when I was at Rover. They are a great bunch to work with – we have a laugh."

Ms de la Haye said some of the 180 people now working at MG UK had even given up jobs at Rolls Royce and Bentley to come back to Longbridge. "They said there was just something about working here, and they couldn't wait to get back," she said.

The new cars come with top-of-the-line specification including leather seats, high quality stereo systems, rear parking sensors and hard tops. The trim line is where much of this equipment is installed. The cars then roll down the line and are automatically raised and transferred across the factory to the assembly line on the other side. When full there are around 100 cars on the two lines at any one time.

Although the initial batch of cars will be orange, the other LE 500s will come in red, white, blue, grey and black. Around 40 per cent of the car is made up of parts from the UK and Europe. Most of the rest comes from China, including the body shell known in the industry as "body-in-white".

This is produced at NAC's Pukou factory in Nanjing, but the company is currently looking for a partner business to run a body-in-white manufacturing unit on the 110 acre MG operation at Longbridge. The engines too are made at Pukou but, although modernised for new EU emissions regulations.

But much will depend on the success of the new MG TF. Roger Parker, from the MG Owner's Club, has had a chance to drive one.

Mr Parker, a former motorway policeman from Tamworth, said: "In terms of the quality it is way ahead of the old car. I've had a chance to drive three of the cars as the new one has been developed and each one has got better and better."