In light of this thread on the Rover 75 Tourer, and the fact that people talk about the company as having disappeared, I am wondering if there is no continuity at all between the current incarnation of MG and the old one.

Certainly the wikipedia article conveys the idea that it is the same company with merely a hiccup in its long history, but it doesn’t seem to be perceived that way by the motoring public.

What’s up with that? Is it just because it now has a Shanghai-based parent company? But if so, why were Jaguar/Landrover not written off when under Ford ownership? Ultimately, what accounts for the difference in the perception of continuity?

Can’t remember all the details but didn’t the current owners just buy the name? Therefore the current cars only link to the past is the badge on the front?

This compared to jag/lr etc who have been owned by various people but the vehicles continue to be produced and improved. The company stays the same but with a different parent company with any changes or influence brought in as natural progression. Something like that anyway.

Didn’t another Chinese company buy the rights to rover and all the machinery and tooling from the factories?

That’s what I understand. Certainly the classic MG brand started rotting when the F was stopped. The current cars are a pale, pale shadow of even the Z-R, S, and T.

This might help…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/11188772/MG-Rovers-Phoenix-Four-to-receive-more-than-1m-each.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Venture_Holdings

Can’t remember all the details but didn’t the current owners just buy the name? Therefore the current cars only link to the past is the badge on the front?

Yup, the Chinese bought the MG brand, AFAIK through the back door, no one seemed to know it had even gone, when Rover was finally broken up they tried to sell it and the Chinese came out of the woodwork with the paperwork.

They even market it as “Modern Gentleman”, not Morris Garages.

That’s what I understand. Certainly the classic MG brand started rotting when the F was stopped. The current cars are a pale, pale shadow of even the Z-R, S, and T.

MG started off as a tuning shop, hot saloon cars and coachwork was what they did. The post-war Midget/B was really the departure from the norm.

The modern ones are really bad, I sat in one and the interior is so cheep I couldn’t even think of a comparison, even 90’s Daewoo’s/Kia’s/Protons were better than that.

As for the OP, I think it’s some intangible thing like “Brand Values”. If you were to develop an MG saloon car it should be like a cheap M1/M3 for a normal budget.

Yeah they’re ‘all new’ cars and MG in name only.

They supposedly designed in the UK and Europe, the majority of production done in China and final assembly done in the UK – which really should be a recipe for good cars, we do the bit we’re good at, they do the bit they’re good at and alls well, but they’re not, they’re horrible cut-price crap.

Irronically they’re probably spending more on developement now than MG/Rover ever did since they did the 75, but it seems it’s spent on working out how to make them cheaply rather than being any good.

Aren’t the current models based off old Rover models and just a stop-gap until the ‘proper’ models are developed?

Current ones are truly awful – I was given one recently as a hire car for a couple of days. The worst car I’ve driven since a 1990s Chevvy – build quality felt the same.

the-muffin-man – Member

Aren’t the current models based off old Rover models and just a stop-gap until the ‘proper’ models are developed?

I think some of the design on the bigger one started on the desk of someone at Longbridge about 15 years ago and was going to be an updated 75, but oddly that design was sold to another non-MG Chinesse company who ‘refinded’ it – aka made it cheaper to make, before they sold it onto MG who ‘refinded’ it again.

You can’t completely write them off though, the first Korean cars was appalling, now most of the Kias and Hyunadis are good cars, if a bit boring. The 2025 MG might be a belter!

I used to have an MG ZT-T, there were loads of bits on it that were marked BMW, which was no surprise as BWM owned Rover when the 75 was designed. The mistake I made was buying the petrol which had a Rover engine and not the diesel which had a decent 2litre BMW diesel engine. It was a nice car and generally very well screwed together but the Rover engine had cheap bits on it that meant overheating and head gasket failures were not uncommon.

The MG6 sort of fits between the old ZS and ZT. It’s like a slightly bigger Focus, I have not driven one but the guys on the MG forums I used to frequent reckoned the early ones (4/5 years ago) that Avis car rentals had and subsequently moved on were poor but they did get better. I think they have revised it again and now there is only a diesel option.

If I was in the market for a new car I’d probably go and check an MG6 out rather than just write it off as Chinese rubbish. As has been noted all early Japanese and Korean cars were laughed at. The MG3 looks ugly though.