MG will no longer screw cars together at Longbridge.
Discussion
Fastdruid said:
I wonder if they've just been given too good an offer to turn down for the land. It's a decent sized site and with the "Longbridge village" plus the massive numbers of houses built on the former Rover works they might have received a decent offer for it....
Well only 25 workers spread over 50 acres of former production halls was only going to end one way. SIAC must have planned a much higher production rate originally lIRC they publically stated the plan was to employ 1,200 workers when they acquired MG.yonex said:
Rich1973 said:
All those deriding MG as a Rover with tat added presumably treat S-Line and M Sport and AMG badged cars with the same disdain.
There are levels. AMG can be a full on monster, or a set of wheels. Let's not kid ourselves it was a pretty desperate piece of marketing without much substance. I love the old MG's, but from the Metro onwards it was a bit queezy IMO. If we're talking about full on M cars and AMG or RS then you are well wide of the mark.
b0rk said:
Fastdruid said:
I wonder if they've just been given too good an offer to turn down for the land. It's a decent sized site and with the "Longbridge village" plus the massive numbers of houses built on the former Rover works they might have received a decent offer for it....
Well only 25 workers spread over 50 acres of former production halls was only going to end one way. SIAC must have planned a much higher production rate originally lIRC they publically stated the plan was to employ 1,200 workers when they acquired MG.Why do people keep saying the ugly and dull MG looks good?
I can't think of anything good about it, and I was actually hoping that MG would do better.
I actually sat in the EX-E concept. I remember MG rally car and how the Jaguar XJ220 used a derivative of the MG rally car engine. Think about the niche that MG once had and the niche that Mazda now fill with the MX5.
Just think what could have been!
I can't think of anything good about it, and I was actually hoping that MG would do better.
I actually sat in the EX-E concept. I remember MG rally car and how the Jaguar XJ220 used a derivative of the MG rally car engine. Think about the niche that MG once had and the niche that Mazda now fill with the MX5.
Just think what could have been!
kambites said:
It's derived from the Roewe 550 which is basically a rebadged, facelifted Rover 75.
I think it's a bit more than that, I think it's what became of the mid-sized car MG Rover were trying to get developed. As I recall, some of the engineers that ended up at MG under SAIC came from Ricardo who were working on the project. Or was it Prodrive?Anyway, this is a shame but I don't think SAIC were ever really all that committed to production in the UK. They acquired Longbridge when they took over Nanjing, and don't seem to have ever wanted to invest money in production there.
LandRoverManiac said:
TooMany2cvs said:
Eh? They were just factory-blinged old man's cars (200-25/400-45/75). I had a few of the 45-shape-400s, and they were perfectly decent, but nothing terribly special. Better than the Vectra/Mondildo/Golf GL that were my co.car alternatives...
You notice the difference when jumping from the Rover equivalent into the MG version - it's hard to describe them as being from the same company. The Rover 45 and to a certain degree the 75 were decent cars, but they don't like changing direction, have woolly steering and an unsettling ride the moment you attempt to attack any corner. Fairly okay as normal everyday cars - but not sporty.The MG versions are quite different, they have harder sports suspension, better brakes and taught steering. Jump into a ZS or ZT of the same year/condition/ engine as a 45 / 75 - and it becomes rapidly apparent that they were much more than just a couple of spoilers bolted on (although they did do that as well). MG got hold of them and somehow managed to take some very boring, bland cars and make them handle way better than they technically should have.
Latterly for the 75/ZT, they had some help from BMW (the brakes on the ZT are interchangeable with BMW 3-series and I suspect the idea for a multi-link Z-Axle was possibly German in origin as well).
However none of that has anything to do with the company now - I suspect the people who made my car are long-since out of the car-design business and the next 'hot' Chinese MG will just have some spoilers fitted with none of the hidden engineering underneath. Happy to be proven wrong however.
I dont know how much weight my opinion holds as the only slighlty sporting stuff ive driven is e36,e39,e38 beemers.
But something about that little zr was so right.. much better than you'd think longbridge did a bloody good job with the chassis ill give them that.
TooMany2cvs said:
LandRoverManiac said:
...they lack the sporty edge that the last UK generation (ZR, ZS, ZT) offered.
Eh? They were just factory-blinged old man's cars (200-25/400-45/75). I had a few of the 45-shape-400s, and they were perfectly decent, but nothing terribly special. Better than the Vectra/Mondildo/Golf GL that were my co.car alternatives...yonex said:
Rich1973 said:
All those deriding MG as a Rover with tat added presumably treat S-Line and M Sport and AMG badged cars with the same disdain.
There are levels. AMG can be a full on monster, or a set of wheels. Let's not kid ourselves it was a pretty desperate piece of marketing without much substance. I love the old MG's, but from the Metro onwards it was a bit queezy IMO. If we're talking about full on M cars and AMG or RS then you are well wide of the mark.
Except in the mind of a few delusional fanboys lol.
NiceCupOfTea said:
TooMany2cvs said:
LandRoverManiac said:
...they lack the sporty edge that the last UK generation (ZR, ZS, ZT) offered.
Eh? They were just factory-blinged old man's cars (200-25/400-45/75). I had a few of the 45-shape-400s, and they were perfectly decent, but nothing terribly special. Better than the Vectra/Mondildo/Golf GL that were my co.car alternatives...
But its alright now though cos we've got a bunch of renault engined amg line a class mercs and hateful gopping pcp'ed Audi A1's
Dave Hedgehog said:
There also mostly half decent cars unlike everything rover ever made, a car company whose products where so utterly terrible they managed to go bust at the peak of an economic boom
Except in the mind of a few delusional fanboys lol.
The thing is, that's just not true! The 75/ZT was a good car by anybody's standards and won a lot of awards. The 400/45/ZS/200/25/ZRs had various issues (pricing, position in the market, questionable image, soldiering on far too long, and the shadow of the head gasket issues), but they were not bad cars. I am no Rover fanboy, but the early Rover 25 I ran for a couple of years was really good - quick for the engine size, good on fuel, comfortable, reliable, and no worse than many of the other small hatch offerings at the time - in fact I chose it over quite a few of its competitors as none of them were as good all rounders.Except in the mind of a few delusional fanboys lol.
They went bust for a host of reasons, but not because they were terrible cars (apart from the CityRover; that was terrible).
There's no defending them. What they made wasn't good enough. As for the 75, it's like it gets better every day in PH. It's good because it's about as valuable as a packet of crisps. Besides, other manufacturers seem to have a range of half decent cars, not just one that is not quite as poor as the others. For disposable motoring I'm with you, otherwise no.
yonex said:
There's no defending them. What they made wasn't good enough. As for the 75, it's like it gets better every day in PH. It's good because it's about as valuable as a packet of crisps. Besides, other manufacturers seem to have a range of half decent cars, not just one that is not quite as poor as the others. For disposable motoring I'm with you, otherwise no.
In the mid-90s they weren't bad cars at all - compare with Mk.3 Astra, Escort, Corsa B, Fiesta Mk.3 etc. By the early 2000s, yes they were looking tired (and they were overpriced and had reliability issues and a poor image) but I'd still stand by my statement that they weren't bad cars, and better than many.NiceCupOfTea said:
In the mid-90s they weren't bad cars at all - compare with Mk.3 Astra, Escort, Corsa B, Fiesta Mk.3 etc. By the early 2000s, yes they were looking tired (and they were overpriced and had reliability issues and a poor image) but I'd still stand by my statement that they weren't bad cars, and better than many.
In the mid 90's they were still selling the Metro, which was outclassed by pretty much everything five years previously. You can look back with rose tinted spectacles but history tells the reality. The cars you have listed above weren't the benchmarks, they were mostly French anyway as I seem to recall, when it came to driving? I mean, in the mid to late 90's the DC2 arrived. I really don't think I've got rose tinted specs on - I'm not saying they were brilliant, and yes the Metro was long overdue being retired, but the whole "they were s
te" thing is so boring, it's just not true. They were no worse than a lot of other stuff, and better than a fair bit too.
te" thing is so boring, it's just not true. They were no worse than a lot of other stuff, and better than a fair bit too.Rather appropriate, this popped up on FB, URL is pretty self-explanatory.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3809684/Ph...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3809684/Ph...
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