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MG AG

MG Chinese website:

Company Information

MG company's car brand contain :MG,MG (SAIC).

MG is a British sports car brand founded in 1924.

MG is best known for two-seat open sports cars, but MG also produced saloons and coupés. More recently, the brand has also been used to designate sportier versions of other models belonging to the parent company.

The brand was in continuous use (barring the years of the Second World War) for 56 years after its inception. Production of predominantly two-seater sports cars was concentrated at a factory in Abingdon, some 10 miles (16 km) south of Oxford. The BMC competition department was also based at the Abingdon plant and produced many winning rally and race cars. In the autumn of 1980, however, the Abingdon factory closed and MGB production ceased.

Between 1982 and 1991, the MG marque was revived on faster versions of Austin Rover's Metro, Maestro and Montego ranges. After an interval of barely one year, the MG marque was revived again, this time on the MG RV8 — an updated MGB Roadster with a Rover V8 engine, which was produced in low volumes.

The "real" revival came in the summer of 1995, when the high volume MG F two-seater roadster was launched. This was an instant hit with buyers, and sold in volumes which had been unthinkable on affordable two-seaters since the 1970s. The MG F was subsequently replaced under BMW's ownership by the "02 Model Year" revised version, otherwise known as the X40 project.

MG was one half of the MG Rover group in May 2000, when BMW 'broke up' the Rover Group. This arrangement saw the return of MG badges on sportier Rover-based cars, but production ceased in April 2005 when MG Rover went into administration.

The assets of MG Rover were bought by Chinese carmaker Nanjing Automobile in July 2005 who themselves were bought by SAIC in December 2007.[1]

In 2007 pilot production of the MG TF resumed at Longbridge. Production of the MG 7 large sports saloon also started in China, and in 2008 the range is set to expand with the arrival of the smaller MG 3 and MG 5 hatchbacks.

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Company History

MG got its name from "Morris Garages", a dealer of Morris cars in Oxford which began producing its own customized versions to the designs of Cecil Kimber who had joined the company as its Sales Manager in 1921 and was promoted to General Manager in 1922.[6] Kimber remained as General Manager until 1941 when he fell out with Lord Nuffield over procuring wartime work. Kimber died in 1945 in a freak railway accident.

There is some debate over when MG started. The company itself stated it to be 1924[citation needed], although the first cars bore both Morris and MG badges and a reference to MG with the octagon badge appears in an Oxford newspaper from November 1923.[6] Others dispute this and believe that MG only properly began trading in 1925.

The first cars which were rebodied Morris models using coachwork from Carbodies of Coventry and were built in premises in Alfred Lane, Oxford but demand soon caused a move to larger premises in Bainton Road in September 1925 sharing space with the Morris radiator works. Continuing expansion meant another move in 1927 to a separate factory in Edmund Road, Cowley, Oxford,[6] near the main Morris factory and for the first time it was possible to include a production line. In 1928 the company had become large enough to warrant an identity separate from the original Morris Garages and the M.G. Car Company Limited was established in March of that year[6] and in October for the first time a stand was taken at the London Motor Show. Space again soon ran out and a search for a permanent home led to the lease of part an old leather factory in Abingdon, Oxfordshire in 1929,[6] gradually taking over more space until production ended there in 1980.

Originally owned personally by William Morris, the company was sold to Morris Motors (itself part of the Nuffield Organisation) in 1935; a change that was to have serious consequences for the company, particularly its motor-sport activities.

 

BMC

MG was absorbed into the British Motor Corporation in 1952. Long-time service manager John Thornley took over as General Manager, guiding the company through its best years until his retirement in 1969. Under BMC, several MG models were no more than badge-engineered versions of other marques, with the main exception being the small MG sports cars.

Amidst a mix of economic, internal and external politics, the Abingdon factory was shut down as part of the ruthless programme of cutbacks necessary to turn BL around after the turbulent times of the 1970s. Though many plants were closed, none created such an uproar among workers, dealers, clubs and customers as this closing did. Years later, Sir Michael Edwardes expressed regret about his decision. Later forms of MGs built by BL's Austin Rover Group were often badge-engineered Austins, and were made at the Longbridge plant. As of 2003, the site of the former Abingdon factory was host to McDonalds and the Thames Valley Police with only the former office block still standing. The headquarters of the MG Car Club (established 1930) is situated next door.

 

BMW

After BL became the Rover Group in 1986, ownership of MG passed to British Aerospace in 1988 and then in 1994 to BMW. BMW sold the business in 2000 and MG became part of the MG Rover Group based in Longbridge, Birmingham. The practice of selling unique MG sports cars alongside badge-engineered models (by now Rovers) continued. The Group went into receivership in 2005 and car production was suspended on 7 April 2005.

In 2006, it was reported that Project Kimber led by David James had entered talks with Nanjing to buy the MG brand in order to produce a range of sports cars based on the discontinued Smart Roadster design by DaimlerChrysler. No agreement was reached and it was later announced that the re-launched Smart Roadster would bear the AC name.

 

Nanjing and SAIC

On 22 July 2005, the Nanjing Automobile Group purchased the rights to the MG name and the assets of the MG Rover Group for £53 million. Its new Chinese owners, stated that the brand would stand for something new in China, as MG general manager Zhang Xin said: "We want Chinese consumers to know this brand as 'Modern Gentleman'. To see that this brand represents grace and style." [7] In Europe it still stands for "Morris Garages".

Nanjing restarted production of the MG TF and ZT ranges in early 2007. The TF is being built at Longbridge, while the ZT (now the MG 7) is being assembled in China.

On 11 July 2006 Nanjing announced the development of a TF sports coupé[8] . A new plant was to be built in Ardmore, Oklahoma to build the car, accounting for roughly 60% of TF output worldwide. A new development center would also be opened in the United States, located at the University of Oklahoma. The Longbridge plant in the UK was to continue to build TFs as well, and a third plant in Pukou, at Jiangsu Province in China, would produce the ZT and ZR. According to Nanjing, MGs were to go on sale in the United States in the early summer of 2008. However, in an interview in August, 2008, NAC MG UK's Sales and Marketing Director, Gary Hagen stated that the Oklahoma deal had fallen through. He also said that there would be no immediate return to the US market as they would first be concentrating on the UK and Ireland followed by the rest of Europe.[9]


The MG range was relaunched in Britain during 2008, with the TF, now called the TF LE500, an updated version of the original model. The new MG 3, MG 5 and MG 7 ranges will be updated versions of the previous MG ZR, MG ZS and MG ZT ranges.

NAC entered talks with SAIC supported by the Chinese government about a merger. Their cars, MG 7 (NAC) and Roewe 750 (SAIC) share mechanical features. The takeover was completed on 26 December 2007.

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