First new MG for 16 years rolls off Birmingham production line
The first all-new MG for 16 years rolled off the production line today as part of an Anglo-Chinese collaboration.
The 1.8 litre MG6 was designed and engineered in Britain, but some of its production has taken place in China.
It will vie for competition from the Volkswagen Golf and Ford Focus and costs between £15,500 and £19,000.
All the testing and engineering has been carried out at MG Birmingham, a factory built on the former Longbridge site which closed six years ago with the loss of 6,500 jobs.
Around 400 people now work on site, a fraction of those who worked for Rover at its peak.
Richard Burden, Labour MP for Birmingham Northfield, said: “We’re never going to see Rover’s return of 20,000 people engaged in mass car production, but it is a real milestone for Longbridge and for the automotive industry in the West Midlands.
"Longbridge has been through dark days. But the greatest tribute we can pay to the heritage that made the name Longbridge synonymous with motor manufacturing throughout the 20th century is to build a future in the 21st century."
MG Rover was bought by the Chinese car manufacturer NAC which merged with the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) four years ago.
Britain’s car industry was badly hit by the recession at the end of last decade with production and sales dipping alarmingly at the beginning of 2009.
It rallied on the back of the Labour government's car-scrappage scheme.
New car sales of late have failed to match the scrappage-boosted period of 2009/10 but the motor industry believes purchases will pick up in the last half of 2011.
To mark the launch of the new MG6, the first car was driven off the production line through clouds of dry ice by Longbridge's only female factory worker, Lisa Ponter.
Craig Osman, manufacturing manager at the Longbridge plant, said: "This has been a very exciting time. This is the first all-new product out of this plant for 16 years.
"Everybody has been involved in this project from start to finish so to get the first customer car off the line is very exciting.
"The economic climate has been tough in the West Midlands in general over the last couple of years.
"We've got an exciting product, it's fresh to the market and hopefully the public will back us and buy the product.
"So hopefully this is a new start for the Longbridge plant and hopefully the West Midlands."
