Entries Invited for Le Mans Celebration Race to commemorate 1959 MG Car Club Entry he MG Car Club is inviting entries for a Le Mans Celebration race at Oulton Park on May 9th 2009. Entries are for cars of a type and in a form that were raced up to 1965 – including prewar. All cars should be to FIA spec and on road tyres or “L” sections. The Le Mans Celebration Race is by invitation but if you wish to receive an application call Steve Carr at the MG Car Club Office on 01235 555552. The race coincides with the publication of a book which records the MGCC North West Centres entries at Le Mans in 1959, 1960 1961. These were disguised Works entries after the MG Car company withdrew from Le Mans following the 1955 accident. The occasion […]

Under 21 racers will benefit from a half-price race entry scheme designed to make racing more affordable for the cash strapped youth. Anyone under 21 on January 1 2009 will benefit from half price race entry fees at all MG Car Club race meetings in 2009. The first MG Car Club race will be full price and the entrant/driver will receive a half price voucher against their next entry. Each subsequent entry will receive a similar half price voucher with the last race of the year being free, provided of course they have the voucher from their previous race. Ron Gammons , Clerk of Course for MG Car Club said, “In 2008 we had a 17-year old winner of our MG Trophy Championship which has encouraged to provide this financial incentive to bring more youngsters into the sport. To race […]

Jaguar Land Rover has announced it is cutting 450 staff.

One of the most desirable British cars ever made has returned to Henley for the first time in more than 70 years. The Squire, which was first manufactured in a single garage at the top of Remenham Hill in 1934, took center stage at an exhibition at Phyllis Court Club. More than 230 members and guests paid tribute to Adrian Squire, a former Bentley apprentice who lived and worked in Henley and had a showroom in Bell Street that is now a bookshop. Piers Flashman, chairman of the motoring section at Phyllis Court Club, said the exhibition was years in the making. He added: “It was a great success and a sell-out. People traveled from as far as New Zealand to be part of the event. “We were extremely lucky to have several generations of the Squire family as well […]

After its first successful low-speed run last week, the British Steam Car was taken to the MoD’s Thorney Island facility near Portsmouth for a series of higher speed runs on Wednesday and Thursday. Early reports are of the car and crew performing well, with the steam generators building pressure successfully and the safety systems shutting down the car quickly when a small defect was detected. The team of six engineers is learning to turn the car quickly and prepare it for a return run within the allotted time of one hour. The British Steam Car’s target velocity is 170mph, which would net them one of the longest-held speed records, set by Fred Marriott, who achieved a 121.57mph flying kilometre record in the Stanley brothers’ Rocket at the 1906 Florida Speed Week. The target speed will also net the team and […]

British car manufacturers have won a four-year delay to the introduction of European rules designed to force them to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from new cars. Jaguar Land Rover was granted a special deal after Britain joined ranks with other car-producing EU states to water down fuel efficiency targets proposed last year. The highest levels of fines for failing to comply with the targets will not come into force until 2019, not in 2015 as previously proposed. The deal means manufacturers will be able to delay investing in expensive carbon-reduction technology for several more years. MEPs and the 27 EU member states have agreed to abandon plans to force the industry to reduce average CO emissions from around 158g/km last year to 130g/km by 2012.

Aston Martin may cut as many as 600 jobs, the British sports car brand said today. The possible cuts of 300 full-time jobs along with “a similar number” of temporary positions are part of a discussion between the former Ford Motor Co. subsidiary and its trade union. Aston Martin also said it’s considering other undisclosed cutbacks related to worldwide economic woes and plunging sales. “These are regrettable but necessary measures in the extraordinary market conditions we all now face,” Aston Martin CEO Ulrich Bez said in a statement. The cutbacks come as the automaker seeks to revive the Lagonda luxury brand to diversify its product mix beyond sports cars.

People planning on buying a car in the new year may want to hang on until the Lotus Evora arrives in showrooms across the UK, after it was given the thumbs up by British vehicle enthusiasts. The model scooped the title of Overall Most Rated Car of 2008 in a poll of iMotor Magazine readers. Some 95 per cent of participants chose to rate, rather than slate, the vehicle. Mike Kimberley, chief executive officer of Lotus, said the award was particularly impressive considering the car did not go on sale in the UK until next spring. Commenting on the popularity of the Evora, iMotor editor Mat Watson said: “Its … score of 95 per cent is truly impressive and enough to see it beat brilliant machines such as the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 and Nissan GT-R.”

The MG sports car is now back on sale in Britain. The company’s story is an amazing one of survival since the birth of the marque in the 1920s. It survived ownership by BMC, British Leyland, BMW and is now in Chinese hands. Yet, this nifty little sports car is still there bearing its badge with pride. So with the rebirth of the brand in Britain, it is perhaps appropriate to look at the model which drove MG into modern times. The MG TD was arguably the most popular of all the T series cars. It followed the success of the TC Midget which made inroads into the United States market. Underpinned by the success of the TC, the TD answered calls for a bigger and better equipped car. MG was then owned by the Nuffield Group and as the […]

In a survey of residual values carried by EurotaxGlass’s, publisher of the Glass’s Guide ‘trade bible’, the MINI 1.4TD came out with an average trade-in value of 62.3 per cent after three years. It is the second year in succession that the MINI has topped the table of the slowest-depreciating cars, although the downturn in used car values is indicated by the fact that last year it retained 71 per cent of its value after three years. Seven of this year’s top 10 are cheap to buy and run, small and fuel-efficient. The almost identical Citroen C1, Toyota Aygo and Peugeot 107 were second, fourth and fifth respectively. However, the Ferrari F430 coupe and spyder took third place, retaining 60.9 per cent of their value after three years. The Lamborghini Murcielago was in eighth place (55.2 per cent), while rear- […]

The second phase of the MG facility, located in Pukou, Nanjing, has started construction after Chinese auto giant SAIC invested 2.566 billion yuan ($376.24 million), Beijing Youth said today. Construction of the facility, which is to develop an all-new A-class car platform and the matched small engines, will be completed in 2009, according to Gao Yunhang, assistant general manager of MG sales company. When its construction is completed, the project will get an annual capacity of 200,000 vehicles and 250,000 engines, said Gao. The small engines are all turbocharged engines ranging from 1.3L to 1.5L, Gao said. The A-class car platform will build both MG5 and Roewe 350 models and will also develop MPV, hatchback and sedan models later, a source said. The MG6 is actually the hatchback model of Roewe 550, not just a common hatchback, the source disclosed. […]

Jaguar Land Rover’s importance to the West Midlands has been spelled out as business minister Lord Mandelson considers a rescue package for the embattled UK car industry. The Indian-owned company is critical for the future of the region, according to Mick Laverty, chief executive of development agency Advantage West Midlands. And JLR chief executive David Smith urged the government to support the industry’s “jewel in the crown” with funds to help it to survive the recession and credit crisis. Mr Laverty and Mr Smith were speaking at a round table meeting held at a Birmingham restaurant that was hosted by government manufacturing adviser Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya, head of the Warwick Manufacturing Group. He claimed that JLR would have “gone into thin air” in the present crisis had Ford sold it to private equity interests instead of Tata Motors of […]

Ford is in talks with the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, China’s biggest car-maker, in a desperate attempt to sell its prestigious Volvo brand. A source close to the American motor giant said it recently made a second approach to SAIC, which already owns the rights to the MG car marque. Earlier talks in the summer faltered over price. Ford, which bought Volvo for £4.4billion in 1999, is said to be hoping the sale will fetch £4 billion. The disposal would send an important signal to the US Congress that Ford is taking major action to restructure its business in return for a massive cash injection.

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A faltering auto giant whose brands are synonymous with the open road. Hundreds of thousands of unionized workers with powerful political backers. An urgent plea for the government to write a virtual blank check. This is not the story of Ford and General Motors, but British Leyland, a car company that went through £11 billion of inflation-adjusted British taxpayer money, or $16.5 billion, in the ’70s and ’80s before going out of business. All that is left of the company now are memories of cars like the Triumph, and a painful lesson in the limited effectiveness of bailouts.

The Birmingham Mail reports that the new MGTF is selling quickly. MG enthusiasts keen to get their hands on one of the limited edition MGTF models will have to move fast – as the last few are now coming off the Longbridge production line. The first 500 MGTF models made at Longbridge have been the special LE500 versions and Chinese owned MG UK is now getting ready to make the more regular, cheaper version of the car in the New Year. To date 400 of the 500 have been sold and there are some still some available through dealers, although a lot of those are demonstrators. Eleanor De La Haye, MG UK’s corporate communications manager, said the reduction in VAT had given a last minute boost to the sale of the last few LE500s. “Sales have gone well and the […]

The BBC’s Chanel 4 News is reporting that thousands of jobs at two UK car plants could be at risk as a result of a worldwide sales slump. General Motors, the world’s biggest car company which owns Vauxhall, said it will be bankrupt within months unless it gets an emergency cash injection from the US government to help it during the global financial crisis. The firm said it had called off merger talks with Chrysler and was asking the government for help after using up $6.9 billion (£4.4 billion) in the third quarter of 2008. The company employs around 5,000 workers at plants in Luton and Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, which produce around 215,000 vehicles a year. Meanwhile, German car giant BMW announced that production of the Mini was to be curtailed, with workers at plants at Oxford and Swindon told […]

A museum dedicated to the MG car has reopened in Abingdon. The MG Museum opened on October 25 on the second floor of the County Hall Museum, in Market Place. The small museum, organized by former MG employee Brian Moylan, ran for a trial each weekend throughout last winter. However, it has now been given a permanent home – with the promise of more space to follow when the museum is revamped. Abingdon Works Centre, the local branch of the MG Car Club, donated £500 towards expanding the exhibition.