Nanjing shows new MG cars

You couldn’t make it up. There was the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra sawing away against a backdrop of Tower Bridge; Brum’s mayor and MP mingling with guests; MG club officials beaming away in their best bibs and tuckers; dry ice, confetti and deafening soundtracks engulfing the cars. This was the relaunch of MG, Chinese-style.

Never mind that Nanjing Automobile Corporation is tagging the MG brand it bought for £53m two years ago as ‘Modern Gentleman’; that is only for the unsuspecting Chinese. More significant for the visiting Brits were the two freshly built cars on stage – an MGTF and an MG7 (nee ZT) – the impressive new factory Nanjing has created to build them, and the confirmation by NAC chairman Wang Hongbiao that production of 200,000 cars a year is about to start.

For the first time, sceptical Brits could also start believing that Nanjing does indeed have a future for Longbridge. Wang said that output, initially of the TF, really will be under way by the end of May or at latest early June. By the end of next year, up to 800 workers would be assembling at a rate of 50,000 cars a year. Better yet, future models would be developed jointly in the UK and China.

As Wang spoke, there was one grinning figure nodding furiously, the respected product strategy chief at the late MG Rover, Rob Oldaker. And who will be new Head of Product Development at Nanjing? Step forward Rob Oldaker…