MG

The results are in and for the fifth consecutive month, MG Motor UK is reporting record-breaking sales figures. According to results released by the Society of Motoring Manufacturers (SMMT), MG achieved 0.5% share of the new car market in April, its highest ever monthly share since its relaunch in 2008. Year to date MG is the fastest growing automotive brand in the UK and on track to double its sales volume this year. Central to the success of MG has been the All-New MG ZS. Stylishly-designed with 448 liters of boot space and lots of extras including Apple CarPlay, SatNav and Cruise Control the Compact-SUV is a tempting offer. With prices starting from just £12,495, the MG ZS is the best value-for-money SUV on the market.

This morning in Beijing, the MG X-motion concept car premiered at the Beijing Auto Show. The X-motion follows the MG brand design philosophy of Emotional Dynamism that was showcased in the brand’s first fully electric sports car concept, the MG E-motion. The ‘X’ in the product name X-motion represents the endless possibilities of how people can relate to the design. Whether that is through its stunningly eye-catching appearance, inspiring performance thanks to its sporting genes, or through an appreciation of its multi-dimensional intelligent technology.

The MG Car Club has taken large steps towards creating a new car club culture for India following a very successful week in Delhi as guests of MG Motor India. Just as with its UK equivalent, MG Motor India is a subsidiary of the Chinese-based SAIC Motor Corporation. Its cars will be assembled at its new Halol-based facility in the Indian state of Gujarat, with the first model due for a 2019 launch. However, the team in India has already spent more than a year exploring the brand’s iconic past, with the MG Car Club – SAIC’s world heritage partner – playing a vital role in the process.

One of the latest additions to the MG Car Club’s comprehensive archive is a 1/4-scale MG Magnette ‘styling’ model, and the Club is now appealing for more information about this remarkable discovery. The model appeared, quite unexpectedly, in a Bonhams auction catalog last December, where it was wrongly described there as a ZA model from 1953. Particular thanks are due to Peter Cadman who saw the catalog and alerted the Magnette Register. Chairman Paul Batho then investigated to establish its provenance, and MGCC management quickly agreed that the Club should try to acquire the model for its archives. Finally, board member Dave Saunders was able to successfully bid for it at Bonhams on 6th December.

Following significant investment in its Longbridge Training Venue, MG Motor UK has announced that the Cecil Kimber College has now been accredited by the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI). This highly-coveted industry recognition signifies that MG has the capacity and high-standard infrastructure to deliver technical training to repairers across the MG dealer network. MG has invested significantly in developing its courses, training equipment, and infrastructure earlier this year. Including some development of the parts warehouse, the company has invested £0.5 million on adding new features such as workshop space for up to 10 vehicles, twin fully equipped classrooms to accommodate up to 20 delegates, two post hoists to allow for raised vehicle work and insulated flooring to accommodate electric and hybrid vehicle training.

For our video of the week this time, we have an MG factory publicity video that comes to us via Pathé.  This film, Sports Car of the Year 1955-56, focuses on the newly introduced MGA. Starting with competition films from Le Mans, the Alpine Rally, and the Mille Miglia. The MGA, as most readers know, replaced the MG TF 1500 and represented a complete styling break from MG’s earlier sports cars – that styling having been developed for racing and records cars. Announced on September 26, 1955, the car was officially launched at the Frankfurt Motor Show. A total of 101,081 units were sold through the end of production in July 1962, the vast majority of which were exported. Only 5869 cars were sold on the home market, the lowest percentage of any British car. While now what one would call “impartial”, […]

For the sixth year running, the parent company of MG has launched the SAIC Design Challenge for automotive design students. Following the competition’s success in China, a European based competition has been launched now running for its second year. This year, students are being challenged to develop a flagship electric vehicle for the iconic MG Motor brand that will meet 2025 transport requirements. The technical level of entries that students are required to produce is very demanding, with future automotive designers producing fully-developed concepts. Last year, two European finalists were sent to China to present final designs at SAIC Motor’s global headquarters to the board and international members of the press.

MG has achieved a record sales month, with March 2018 figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) confirming a 49% increase in registrations compared to the same month last year. MG sold more than 1,100 cars in March, marking it as the brand’s highest monthly performance since its return to the market in 2008. Year-to-date, MG is the fastest-growing car brand in the UK, with sales increasing by 67% versus the same period in 2017. MG is partly attributing this success to its new warranty programme. Since the start of the year, all new MGs are backed by a manufacturer’s warranty of at least five years, led by the all-new MG ZS Compact-SUV, which has a 7-year/80,000 miles warranty. Daniel Gregorious, Head of Sales & Marketing at MG Motor UK, said: Our strong growth figures show that the MG […]

There are many types of books in an MG collection. There are shop manuals, marque histories, racing stories, advertising records, and on and on. There are few however that standout is completely different. MG, Made In Abingdon: Echoes from the Shop Floor by Bob Frampton is one such book. This book is one of the few that while dealing with the MG factory, doesn’t actually have a ton of information about the cars. Instead, it is about the people and is told in their own words. MG, Made In Abingdon will give you a feel for the people and the time and the place made famous by the sacred octagon. In the book, we hear from the true voices behind the cars. We hear stories that range from tea-girls bringing cinnamon buns to the line-workers to fist fights in bars to men […]

Auto Class Cars, authorized distributor of MG in Qatar, has announced that the MG RX5 compact SUV will be available in the Qatari market by the end of April. MG Motor’s new ‘Hero SUV’ will be available at the MG showroom on Salwa Road, with prices starting at around QR54,000 (approximately $15K USD). The new MG RX5 will appeal to a range of customers, especially younger buyers looking for value for money in a stylish, technologically-advanced package that allows them to stand out from the crowd, according to a statement.

SAIC Motor Corporation, the seventh largest automobile manufacturer globally and China’s largest automaker, sold 6.93 million vehicles in the calendar year 2017. The company registered an overall growth of 6.8 percent compared to 6.49 million vehicles sold in the year-ago period. SAIC’s self-owned passenger car brands MG and Roewe became the new engines for growth, driving more than 50% of SAIC’s overall sales growth in 2017. Sales of MG and Roewe surged 62 percent at over 520,000 units in 2017.

Vintage racing isn’t just a hobby, it is a passion. And an art. We are quite pleased to have a guest article by Don Racine of Mini Mania about using the ribcase transmission from the ubiquitous “Spridget” in the vintage racing application. The most conventional gears in the everyday manual transmission are helical cut. The single biggest advantage of this design is the reduction of noise that is inherent in the more efficient, easy to manufacture straight cut gears. The helical patterns allow for a much less violent meshing of the gears. But, the decreased noise comes with a few penalties. The first of which is sideload – because the gears are helical, some of the thrust is lost in the rotational direction and thus must be controlled with a thrust surface. The thrust surface most often used is called thrust […]

Let’s get bumpy this week!  Our Video of the Week this time is going to be a Morris 1100 television commercial from New Zealand featuring the car’s hydrolastic suspension. Made for the New Zealand British Motor Corporation (BMC) distributor Dominion Motors. If you don’t know, hydrolastic suspension was used on early Minis and the full line of BMC 1100 / 1300 cars, collectively known by their factory designation of ADO16. The ADO16s include the MG 1100, Austin America, Morris 1100, Vanden Plas Princess 1100, Riley Kestrel, and many more. At this point, BMC was huge into badge engineering. Hydrolastic suspension cars, at least in this form, use liquid-filled dampers at each of the four wheels instead of shocks and springs. Those dampers, which are basically large heavy rubber bladders, are connected front-to-back by hoses. This means that when the front left […]

MG Motor UK has announced an exceptional month for sales, reporting a total of 475 vehicle registrations in January –  a staggering 130% increase compared to the same period in 2017. Despite a market downturn of 6.3%, according to figures released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), MG has successfully bucked the trend becoming the UK’s best performing car brand in January. The Longbridge-based company, which concluded 2017 with a year-on-year registration increase of around 6%, looks on course for a successful 2018, despite challenging market conditions.

It is with great sadness that we must report the passing of another great member of our hobby, Ken Smith. Ken was a founding member of the North American MGB Register (NAMGBR) and served as the first editor for the MGB Driver Magazine. Later he also served as editor for Classic MG Magazine. Ken was one of the most recognized people in the Little British Car (LBC) world. Along with his wife, Barby, Ken shared his passion for the MG Marque throughout the world for most of his 80+ years on earth. Ken worked at Moss Motors for 25 years and, with Barby at his side, traveled across the country for many years supporting British car events and representing Moss.

According to many, the last “real” MG was the MGB series which included the MGC — a very important part of the MG history. With over a half million built from 1962 thru 1980, the “B” was certainly the world’s best selling sports car until very recently being surpassed by the Mazda Miata. In this new video put out by Shelbourne Films and available on the Youtube MG channel restoration expert Tom Metcalf, North American MGB Register’s Alan Magnuson, and John Rogers of the North American MGC Register provide interesting and insightful information about these cars. In this new video put out by Shelbourne Films and available on the Youtube MG channel restoration expert Tom Metcalf, North American MGB Register’s Alan Magnuson, and John Rogers of the North American MGC Register provide interesting and insightful information about these cars.

Our video this week deals with the last production MGB made and its continued travels. On October 23rd, 1980 the very last MGB Roadster rolled off the production line at the MG Car Company in Abingdon. After a while, this final specimen ended up in The Heritage Motor Center alongside 300 other classic, vintage, and veteran British cars. In fact, The Heritage Motor Center in Gaydon is the world’s largest British sports car collection. However, recognizing the importance of MG’s to the people of Abingdon, the Center was kind enough to loan that last MGB to Abingdon County Hall Museum for an indefinite period of time. There was only one problem with the loan – the display area at the museum is on the second floor of a historic building with winding stairs and no good way to get a full-sized car, even […]

The sports cars from Morris Garages were founding members of postwar American sports car racing. The 23rd annual “Amelia” will celebrate marque-founder Cecil Kimber’s original MGs that grew from the success of Morris automobiles before World War II. The M.G. Car Company celebrates its 90th birthday in 2018, though the cars wearing MG’s famous octagon badge have been around even longer. The earliest MGs were re-bodied Morris models with styling and performance enhancements. By 1928, the Oxford company had become large and prosperous enough to warrant an identity separate from the original Morris Garages and the M.G. Car Company Limited was established that March.