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The beleaguered British car industry suffered a fresh blow yesterday when MGs Chinese owner backtracked on plans to manufacture large volumes of the marque at Longbridge.

Nanjing Automobile Corporation, which bought the assets of MG Rover for 53 million two years ago, said that most of MGs production would take place at a new plant in China.

The company, which said originally that it would employ 2,000 people to produce 80,000 cars at Longbridge, announced yesterday: The newly established manufacturing line in Nanjing will be responsible for much of the assembly process, but all right-hand [drive] MG TF roadster customer orders will be subject to final assembly in the revived Longbridge plant.

Longbridge is expected to start production in the next few weeks with just 250 workers.

Nanjing insisted, however, that its aim was to revive, maintain and develop MG.

The scaled-down plan for Longbridge is the latest in a series of blows to hit the car industry in its British heartland of the West Midlands. At Christmas, Peugeot closed its Ryton factory, near Coventry. Production of Land Rovers Freelander was moved from Solihull to Merseyside last year and two years ago Jaguar closed its famous Browns Lane factory in Coventry.

Nanjing bought the assets of MG Rover when the independent carmaker collapsed in 2005.

Nanjing refused to specify how many cars it will manufacture when production gets under way at Longbridge. Its statement led to speculation that work at the factory effectively will be reduced to building cars from kits.

Terry Pye, of the union Amicus, said: This has come as a shock and a real disappointment to the ex-Rover workers and the local economy. It is way short of what we expected, which was 1,000 people working there. But 250 is just a drop in the ocean.

Richard Burden, the Labour MP for Birmingham Northfield, which includes Longbridge, said that he would ask Nanjing for clarification over production plans at Longbridge and whether it was still committed to building a research and development centre, as had been planned.

If they want to be a global player, then to have a base in Europe has to make sense, he said.

Julie Kirkbride, the Conservative MP for the adjoining constituency of Bromsgrove, said: It has always been our fear that the proper production of the MG would not come to Longbridge. This would seem to confirm that and that all they wanted was the technology.

Ms Kirkbride said that there would have been a better future for Longbridge under a proposal by Jon Moulton, head of the venture capital group Alchemy, which was put forward seven years ago. However, the Government and unions backed a scheme for volume production, which later collapsed.

Nanjing has developed a few experimental models of a revamped MG TF, with production expected to start in April. Initially the company, which won a bidding race for MG Rover against Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, struggled to get financial backing for the MG venture and mounted a lengthy search for partners.

When MG Rover collapsed, it employed 6,000 people at the 100-year-old Longbridge site.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 9th, 2007 at 11:12 pm and is filed under . You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

The beleaguered British car industry suffered a fresh blow yesterday when MGs Chinese owner backtracked on plans to manufacture large volumes of the marque at Longbridge.

Nanjing Automobile Corporation, which bought the assets of MG Rover for 53 million two years ago, said that most of MGs production would take place at a new plant in China.

The company, which said originally that it would employ 2,000 people to produce 80,000 cars at Longbridge, announced yesterday: The newly established manufacturing line in Nanjing will be responsible for much of the assembly process, but all right-hand [drive] MG TF roadster customer orders will be subject to final assembly in the revived Longbridge plant.

Longbridge is expected to start production in the next few weeks with just 250 workers.

Nanjing insisted, however, that its aim was to revive, maintain and develop MG.

The scaled-down plan for Longbridge is the latest in a series of blows to hit the car industry in its British heartland of the West Midlands. At Christmas, Peugeot closed its Ryton factory, near Coventry. Production of Land Rovers Freelander was moved from Solihull to Merseyside last year and two years ago Jaguar closed its famous Browns Lane factory in Coventry.

Nanjing bought the assets of MG Rover when the independent carmaker collapsed in 2005.

Nanjing refused to specify how many cars it will manufacture when production gets under way at Longbridge. Its statement led to speculation that work at the factory effectively will be reduced to building cars from kits.

Terry Pye, of the union Amicus, said: This has come as a shock and a real disappointment to the ex-Rover workers and the local economy. It is way short of what we expected, which was 1,000 people working there. But 250 is just a drop in the ocean.

Richard Burden, the Labour MP for Birmingham Northfield, which includes Longbridge, said that he would ask Nanjing for clarification over production plans at Longbridge and whether it was still committed to building a research and development centre, as had been planned.

If they want to be a global player, then to have a base in Europe has to make sense, he said.

Julie Kirkbride, the Conservative MP for the adjoining constituency of Bromsgrove, said: It has always been our fear that the proper production of the MG would not come to Longbridge. This would seem to confirm that and that all they wanted was the technology.

Ms Kirkbride said that there would have been a better future for Longbridge under a proposal by Jon Moulton, head of the venture capital group Alchemy, which was put forward seven years ago. However, the Government and unions backed a scheme for volume production, which later collapsed.

Nanjing has developed a few experimental models of a revamped MG TF, with production expected to start in April. Initially the company, which won a bidding race for MG Rover against Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, struggled to get financial backing for the MG venture and mounted a lengthy search for partners.

When MG Rover collapsed, it employed 6,000 people at the 100-year-old Longbridge site.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 at 9:31 pm and is filed under realty. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.