MG6 will be launched at the Guangdong Auto Show on November 23 this year.
When you reach the age of 50, it’s normal to start thinking about things that you still want to accomplish before you become too old to do them. For 52 year old, Roy Locock, that involves circumnavigating the world in a car.
Now if you think that this is more than just a pipe dream from an ambitious man, guess again.
Locock is dead serious about going around the world and he’s doing it behind the wheel of the unlikeliest of vehicles, a 1977 MG Midget. Locock purchased the car three years ago and began touring parts of Italy and Spain. Not content with the miles he covered in his first go-round, Locock decided to take his trusty Midget – which, by the way, goes by the name of Bridget – to see the world. Literally.
Armed with nothing more than five-days of ration, two 10-liter gas cans, and his trusty old Bridget, Locock set out for his journey a year ago, starting from Oxford, England and moving all the way to Chennai, India. Not long after that, Locock took a boat down to Australia, where he proceeded to drive around the entire continent before hopping on another boat, this time to Argentina, where he has gone all the way up to Canada.
Continued after the jump.
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MG is preparing to unveil two new of its light weight mid engine sports cars. The first new MG TF will be an entry level version called the TF 135, priced at £13,511. The sporty little MG will get a 1.8 Liter 16v K-series engine that makes 135 HP, hence the TF 135.
The second is a special edition that marks MG’s 85th anniversary. This is a very special car and will be available in three distinct colors, complete with 85th anniversary graphics on the outside and stunning aubergine leather trim on the interior.
Most of Chinese people are very familiar with Roewe550 and 750. Pretty nice-looking ride, a typical mixed of British and Chinese traditional style car. According to the name recognition, SAIC knows that MG is more popular than Roewe in international market. So, In the Chile automobile market the Roewe 550 and 750 were sold under the MG brand, besides the two models, TF is also an important part of this selling event. Although they have strong British style, they all are made in China now. Depending on the grateful MG nameplate, 550, 750 and TF draw lots of attention of mass public.
But, to be frank, for Chinese people, they are more like to see the Roewe go global, not MG, though Roewe and MG are the same important assets to SAIC now.
The name Roewe, is thought to have come from the traditional Chinese words honour, king and lion "rong", and power and prestige "wei". It is pronounced to the sound of wrong-way in English. It builds based on the MG Rover technology Shanghai Automotive Industry Coroporation bought. The Roewe car in slightly longer than the equivalent MG Rover model, however, shares components such as parts of the interior and the engines.
Roewe is very famous in Chinese market, directly because its first product, Roewe 750 is so similar with Rover 75. Roewe was publicly launched at the Noverber Motor show in Beijing in 2006, where the revised 75 was on dispaly. At that moment, Roewe attracted almost all Chinese Medias’ attention.
MG’s current owners, China’s Nanjing Automobile Group Corp., originally planned to bring the legendary marque back to the United States in the summer 2008. Well new announcements have showed that those plans have been pushed back indefinitely. Plans also had included building MG’s in Oklahoma from kits shipped from China.
"The U.S.A. isn’t on the short-term radar as an anticipated market for us, but with the right product, it would be good to return there," Gary Hagen, marketing director of NAC MG. No reason was given as to why NAC MG changed it’s US release plans. It was simply stated that "The deal fell through".
MGs were last sold in the United States in 1980. Since then many plans to reintroduce the brand to the US have never come to fruition.
Full-scale car manufacturing resumed today at what is left of the historic Longbridge factory. The first car in production is the two-seater MG TF LE500 sports car - an update of the version sold from 2002 to 2005. The cars will sell for £16,400 ($32,400) and are set to be delivered to customers next month.
The factory had been closed since MG collapsed three years ago, causing the loss of 6,000 jobs. In July 2005, what is now Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) bought MG Rover’s assets for 53 million pounds. The new owners demolished over half of the Longbridge facility, but the factory was of such massive size that it still has the capacity to employ about 1,000 workers.
"We are delighted to have reached this important point and are looking forward to seeing the cars in showrooms shortly," said MG UK corporate communications manager Eleanor De La Haye. "If you look at the pre-orders that we have had through our dealers, about 70 percent are already sold and that tells its own story."
MG is one step closer to being home. MG has set pricing for “Limited Edition” TF at £16,399. The two-seat convertible will start production at the Longbridge plant in England, and the first cars should be available Europe by September.
While the car is somewhat of an update from the version sold from 2002 to 2005, the new TF (known as the LE500) signifies a return to the U.K. of one of their most celebrated brands – sort of. In 2005, a Chinese firm, which is now Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), purchased the remains of the MG Rover Group and shut the doors of the historic Longbridge manufacturing plant. Last year, updated versions of MG cars began coming off the assembly line at a new facility in China. Since then, SAIC has been developing a plan to return manufacturing to the U.K., but results have been slow.
The new pricing and delivery dates, solidifies that after an almost three-year idle and some demolition, MG will come home to Longbridge — even if it is a shadow of its former self.
MG announced prices for the TF LE500: 16,399 pounds (20,700 euros). Sales will begin in September. The price of the two-seater sports car will include a body-colored hardtop, air conditioning and parking sensors.
MG will also introduce an entry-level TF that will substantially undercut the Mazda’s price.
The new MG TF will make its debut around 2010 and will replace the TF – production of which is back on track at MG Rover’s old home of Longbridge in the West Midlands. Based on the current Roewe 550 compact hatch, which made its debut at the Beijing Motor Show, the future TF will be available in both coupe and convertible version.
The new TF takes some of its styling inspiration from the MG SV supercar and X80 concept. Those models were both based on the Mangusta – a sports car from Italian maker Qvale, which MG Rover bought in 2001.
The 2010 TF will be based on a rear-wheel-drive platform developed in conjunction with British engineering expert Ricardo and will be powered by MG Rover-based engines – including a 1.8-litre turbo and 2.5-litre V6.
It is going to come as something of a shock to Fortune Magazine’s senior editor, Alex Taylor III, who wrote that “[i] the
Tata deal [to buy
Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford] goes through, it turns the entire auto industry into a global bazaar.”
Mr. Taylor lives in a sheltered environment, working for Time Warner and writing for Fortune. He’s apparently missed the globalization of the auto industry, such as General Motors’ announcement last week that it had sold one (..
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