The end for MG?

[John Meachen]

Uncertainty surrounds the MG-Rover car company,see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4423025.stm
It is sad for car manufacturing and embarassing for the government during an election campaign.

[Garrett Lowell]

It will be sad, indeed, if MG is to go away.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

There's little of it left by now.

The end of the MG Rover Group is a squalid little story of BMW losing patience with the workforce, who over the course of three decades managed to turn the world's biggest car maker into a pathetic shadow of itself, followed by some ingenious lining of pockets by some enterprising "Midlands businessmen" who decided to tap the cash rather than commit to a new model, ending in a thoroughly sordid attempt by the Government, at the highest level, to try to sell a Chinese company a pup, with a gaping hole in its pension scheme, and who knows what other liabilities.

It makes me feel ashamed of my nation. Still, this is the nation that invaded Iraq for no good reason, so that's nothing new.

[ 04-08-2005, 10:56 AM: Message edited by: Andrew Craig-Bennett ]

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

Still, this is the nation that invaded Iraq for no good reason, so that's nothing new. Fairs fair, I don't think the definite article is deserved.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I stand corrected. Try this:


The end of the MG Rover Group is a squalid little story of BMW losing patience with the workforce, who over the course of three decades managed to turn the world's biggest car maker into a pathetic shadow of itself, followed by some ingenious lining of pockets by some enterprising "Midlands businessmen" who decided to tap the cash rather than commit to a new model, ending in a thoroughly sordid attempt by the Government, at the highest level, to try to sell a Chinese company a pup, with a gaping hole in its pension scheme, and who knows what other liabilities.

It makes me feel ashamed of my nation. Still, this is a Government that invaded Iraq for no good reason, so that's nothing new. PS. There was a time when a "Midlands businessman" actually made something, besides cash.

[ 04-08-2005, 10:58 AM: Message edited by: Andrew Craig-Bennett ]

[John of Phoenix]

First MG. Is GM next? Some are worried. :eek:

[RichardBlake]

For what it's worth, I talked to a Dutch/German motor industry journalist about a year ago, who said the general opinion among his colleagues was that BMW bought the Rover etc. group because Rover had come up with a model BMW was scared of, and that BMW's background plan was to buy up the group, hang on to the plums (which they've done), and asset-strip or get rid of the rest, to torpedo the Brit industry for the future. At that point he didn't think MG-Rover would survive.

[Dale R. Hamilton]

I was never so dissapointed as when I arrived in Abingdon on Thames (via rowing boat) a few years back, and I asked for the location of the MG works. There are none I'm told. Nothing to even mark the birthplace- no bricks and morter.

[Hwyl]

Is Morgan the biggest British car company now. I don't think these

http://www.3wheelers.com/46rally3.jpg
are around any longer.

How about TVR, I think Lotus was bought up years ago?

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

TVR, Morgan, Bristol, a few others.

Lotus are owned by Proton, I think.

The truth is that in order to finance new model development, new engine development, and so on, car companies have to be very big, and very multinational. There will be a niche for handfuls of hand built cars, but these cars will be built using other makers' components.

[brian.cunningham]

:( with the revival of little sportscars that get great gas mileage, you'd think they'd be doing better.