Some cars have a clear identity and purpose. The Citroen 2CV is a car for the French country dweller, the original Mini was for the European city, the VW Beetle for a recovering Germany, the Fiat 500 for Italian cities, the pickup is for great American outdoors and a Brougham is for the country club in Florida. Take the location away from those and the purpose is, at least, in part lost.
A small British sports car, like an MG, is for the single chap to chase girls. When necessary, he would upgrade to an MG saloon. The MG saloon, therefore, was for the family man who could afford a little more and had some panache.
Another British brand was for bank managers, though not bankers. They had Jaguars. A Rover was the car for the gentleman who managed the local branch of a national bank; he knew his customers and their businesses and their suppliers and customers. Then came the Rover 800, and even more so the Rover 75. Here was a car that suffered from trying to be competitive with strong modern rivals, like the Audi A4, BMW 3 series, Alfa Romeo 156, whilst also appealing to drivers of smarter Accords, Passats and Mondeos. It had an identity crisis. What was the car supposed to be?
The MG6 was similarly conflicted – it was intended to bring the new era of MG to (principally) the British market, using one of the more famous brand names in British motoring, in a value for money sporting package using building blocks many British motorists had, frankly, almost ignored several years previously, with a dusting of MG/BL/BMC heritage that most likely buyers didn’t see, overlooked or didn’t catch on to.
The origins of the MG6 go back to the days after BMW’s break up and sale of the Rover Group, in April 2000. BMW kept MINI and the Cowley (historically Morris) and Swindon factories, and the commitment to build a new engine factory in Birmingham, Land Rover and Range Rover, along with the Gaydon and Whitley development capabilities were sold to Ford, and the volume car business and the Longbridge (historically Austin, above in its 1950s pomp) was ultimately passed to a consortium known as the Phoenix Four, with a dowry of around £500 million, and the existing range of Rover and MG saloons.
MINI and Land Rover, as part of Jaguar Land Rover obviously came out of all of this is in solid health and with viable futures. The position of the volume cars business was less clear cut – after all BMW let it go because they could not see a path to a viable future for it, in terms of product or volumes.
The business, named MG-Rover, had one significant asset, though. Alongside the smaller Rover 25 and 45 that were based on licenced Honda platforms, MG-Rover had the Rover 75 saloon. This car had been developed under the watch and management of BMW, who enforced BMW standards of thoroughness on Rover, alongside access to technology like modern diesel engines and the rear Z axle. This resulted in a car that was let down only by the marketing and positioning, as a sort of Buick for Europe, expected age of buyer 75, with an arguably overdone wood’n’leather gentlemen’s club interior and soft, though perfectly competent, dynamics. Pitched against the Audi A4, BMW 3 Series, Volvo S60 and top model Mondeos and Accords it was basically overwhelmed, and never reached expectations.
In 2005, MG-Rover failed, and the assets were ultimately purchased by SAIC, who had already purchased much of MG-Rover’s intellectual property as part of an unfulfilled joint venture, including that of the BMW funded Rover 75. All the production equipment for the 25 and 75, and the K series engine, was shipped to Shanghai, and Longbridge was gutted and has subsequently been mostly demolished.
Alongside the 75, MG-Rover had been trying, as much as they could afford, to develop a replacement for the 25 and 45. The raw material available was the 75, and the plan was to cut down the 75 in wheelbase and rear overhang to create a more compact hatchback design. Something similar had just been completed by Alfa Romeo, building the 147 hatchback out of the 156 saloon. I guess we can see this as a model of what MG-Rover hoped to achieve, through utilising the services of various third party contract engineering businesses.
Photo www.aronline.co.uk
It’s a long story, but ultimately the MG-Rover RDX60 project seemingly came to nought. There were various prototypes and development cars coming from the contract design work, but nothing reached anything like production or pre-production. This is perhaps the final version in hatchback form. Given its ancestry from the 75, the knowledge behind it ended up with SAIC, along with the links to the outside design agencies, principally Ricardo.
By April 2007, two years after the demise of MG-Rover, SAIC showed the Roewe W2 concept at the Shanghai Motor Show. This was a four door saloon concept, in line with Chinese market tastes, but even so the style is clearly linked to preliminary work being done in MG-Rover, if not the assembled prototypes.
Roewe as a name is a creation of SAIC, and has not been used outside China. The Roewe 550 went onto the market in 2008, and in certain markets as the MG550. A hatchback version came in 2009.
For Europe, which really means in context Britain, SAIC initially sold the hatchback variant under the MG name. Badged as the MG6GT, it arrived in the UK in the summer of 2011. Mechanically, there was a lot of Rover 75 in the car, although the wheelbase had been shortened to 106.5 inches from 108 inches, and the engine was a thoroughly reworked (by Ricardo) version of the K series. Design and engineering were led by the UK based SAIC Technical Centre, originally based at Leamington Spa, near Coventry, and subsequently moved to the Longbridge site. This facility is still there, and now fully integrated into the SAIC engineering network, along with a central London design studio.
The original plan called for the car to be built at Longbridge, and if you accept putting an assembled drivetrain into a painted and trimmed body is building car, then for a period it was. But in pretty small numbers.
In terms of ability and value, the MG6 was an unusual car. Here was a car half a size bigger than a Focus for run of the mill Focus money. But there were issues, from the start.
One immediate difficulty was that car was only available, at launch, with just one engine option, a 1.8 litre turbocharged petrol engine, linked to a five speed gearbox. This was as development of the Rover K series, which was originally seen in the 1989 Rover 200 series. It was a twin cam, 16V four cylinder and power was 158bhp, torque was 159lbft, so this was no sluggard, but fuel economy was poor, compared with rivals, and even poorer against diesel engine rivals. With the modifications to get it past modern emissions legislation, economy suffered. Users would be lucky to 30 mpg in regular use. Yes, it was competitively powerful, but the poor economy and emissions rating impacted not just running costs but also vehicle taxation in the UK market.
The next issue was the interior. Yes, it was well equipped for the price, showing in paper great value for money. But the interior quality was at best patchy, and often poor. Hard plastics, insubstantial controls, poor graphics on the screen, an unusually shaped and cheaply finished handbrake. Having viewed one when I was car hunting, I can relate to that, and the cheap feeling interior as being the biggest let down of the car.
The style of the interior is perfectly fine, and the space generous compared with a Focus or Golf, but the contact point impressions are not. Neither is the impression of any long term durability truly there either.
Driving was normally judged to be OK (I’ve sat in one but not driven it) although some reports dwell on imprecise and oddly calibrated steering. The Rover 75 and later MG ZT both had pretty decent road manners, and by most accounts this car drives in very similar manner. On road handling may well be the best part of the package.
In the late summer of 2011, the saloon version arrived in the UK, marketed as the MG Magnette, picking up an old MG saloon name last used in the 1960s. You can debate the looks but personally I find the hatchback more cohesive than the saloon, which looks little awkward around the rear deck, as often happens on hatch and saloon pairings. But that’s just me.
The Magnette naming trick was a bit odd – it’s not like everyone can remember a MG Magnette or that the last ones were actually much to behold – a twin carburettor BMC Farina saloon with an old fashioned grille and interior.
Sales of this car were slow, even by MG 6 standards. Indeed, over 6 years, fewer than 6000 were sold in the UK of all variants.
There was a facelift in 2015, adding new headlamps, bumper profiles and lower grilles. To be honest, until I was doing the research for this piece, I had missed this event, and looking at the post facelift black car (above) I think I can be excused for that, but the net result was probably positive. At the same time, the petrol engine was discontinued, leaving just the 1.9 litre 148bhp, 258lbft diesel. Prices were also cut, by around £3000 in some cases. This was not the most refined engine installation ever – CAR said “it vibrates like a pneumatic drill, setting the whole subframe buzzing like a giant mobile phone, and filling the cabin with the sound of the bloke next door cutting his lawn”. Maybe those 6000 sales make sense.
The other consistent factor is not just low perceived quality but actual faults on the road. Most reviews of these cars recall some untoward or noteworthy malfunction of an electrical nature – stop start systems not starting, strange warning light combinations, erratic stereo systems, that sort of thing. Was a bit of BL still in there, or are our expectations unreasonably high now?
But perhaps the most noteworthy finding around these cars is that the MG branding appeared to matter little and make little or no difference to the indifference with which the cars were received. Sales measured in the hundreds, not thousands, for a good value, spacious and well equipped car with a reasonable dose of style was not what MG were about, and maybe the market sensed that too. To many this wasn’t an MG, in either format or execution.
This wasn’t a sports car; it wasn’t truly a sporting car like earlier MG saloons and hatchbacks. It was a reheat of a car few remembered, of which little effort was really made to remind us, and if you’re going to use a brand that does not have a value image, then you need a product that has more to it than value.
And therein lies the issue. One car, a pure value product, presented as fitting a brand of cars which had a sporting pedigree and were holders of some national pride. It didn’t fit well with either the value or the sporting position, and arguably wasn’t good enough at either of them.
But there were some nice colours.
I remember shortly after the Phoenix Consortium took control of Rover, one of their first acts was to build a special rear-wheel drive edition of this front-wheel drive car and stuff a 32-valve Ford modular V8 into it. I thought to myself that this couldn’t have been cheap, they will not make a profit on these cars, and this whole organization will probably…ahem…burn out.
Indeed, indeed and three times indeed
Is it just me or does the RDX60 look like a Toyota Matrix/Pontiac Vibe and the 6, a Corolla?
If you want to know how many cars of a certain type do exit in UK, you can ask at this site below. I requested for MG 6, but I don’t know if this is even written correctly. I neither know those cars nor their exact names/types. And never saw one anywhere in Europe.
https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/?utf8=✓&q=mg6
Howmanyleft.co.uk suggest around 3.3k o the various types still around.
As you were talking about the interior, I got flashbacks to my old 2003 Saab 9-3. Every single thing you mentioned applied to that car as well inside the cabin but you described a car eight years newer.
And no, expectations are not unreasonably high regarding on the road faults. An entire country’s production (Japan) were rarely suffers from these faults and has been this way for close to fifty years now. Honda helped Rover significantly in its last decade and for there to have been little applied knowledge or lessons retained within the culture is sad.
But thanks for the info, I was aware of the MGF, and then something with a lot of Z’s in the name and a lot of wings, but not really this, a fairly normal family sedan. Interesting but clearly significantly flawed.
“ Honda helped Rover significantly in its last decade and for there to have been little applied knowledge or lessons retained within the culture is sad ”
There is more to that than I realized until recently where I stumbled across a very detailed examination of the BMW buyout. I really wish I could remember where (I think it was an old CAR article I found) but it was fairly recent after the takeover, before the 75 had debuted. Who boy, Honda was furious with Rover group when they found out it was essentially hid from Honda BMW had approached with a secret bid. So Rover sets up a meeting/proposition with Honda. The gist of it was Honda wanted less responsibility in return for much less outlay than what BMW already has on the table, with Rover maintaining some authority. The day after Honda’s initial offer, they jump to finalize with BMW. Honda then returns a better offer, more than the BMW deal. Too late, already in motion. The quotes from Honda executives basically said “For a trusted partner of x years, we assumed Rover would have the consideration of both companies in their hearts. Unfortunately that was not the case, and Honda will continue to follow its own path in Europe”. They went all scorched earth toward BMW and basically terminated all upcoming plans of new platform sharing, and left BMW holding a money hemorrhaging bag that had no upcoming modern technology for a new compact FWD anywhere to be found. It was vague, but it was heavily implied if BMW knew how Honda would react, they would not have offered anywhere what they did. It would be of no shock to me that it was actively discouraged post BMW takeover to follow Honda principles for anything; it was them who really foisted BMW into this now apparent mess.
Rover Group was 100% owned by British Aerospace (now BAe Systems) at the time so had no real choice in the matter of who they were sold too.
Indeed; it adds to the secrecy that was involved, and that context is important. The House of Commons was blindsighted as well, and understandably got pissed. Honda also divested all their shares back to BMW almost immediately, within months. As such, Rover and BMW have kept mouths fairy tight lipped, because the truth on either end for them won’t look intelligent. Honda, in atypical form, was pretty blunt about feeling taken for a ride and walking away as a result. Telling. The Rover folks were in no position to challenge a BMW working environment where Rover was incompetent and Honda had just set aflame to what BMW thought they were getting.
This is exactly how I understood it at the time too, from some reports then.
Exactly, BAE sold Rover to the highest bidder, and the only one who would buy the whole thing. Honda only offered for 47.5%.
Still a bit of a surprise when it happened (English understatement).
Not so much sad as ridiculous that quality from Rover was still sub-standard even WITH Honda trying to teach them better. The K-series 1950’s-style weaknesses (and the V6) were laughable, and arose from silly design (“why, yes, let’s tie the main bearings to the head bolts!”).
BMW was appalled with what they got. After trying and trying to let the Rover folk finalize the 75, they gave up and marched in. They then had to delay the launch of the car 6 months to bring it up to scratch.
The English Patient, they called Rover.
Gardiner diesels held the mains with the head bolts I think of course that was a very long time ago,Their engines were really good K series not so much.
Interesting comparison to the Saab 9-3. Having had experience of the Saab, let me be clear – this was a cheap cheap interior, with very flimsy, easily damaged hard plastics. Every contact point was hard or flexed, something you couldn’t accuse the Saab of. The Saab may have had an interior and feature list that was behind, say, an Audi, but the MG6 was behind Aldi.
One thing I perhaps didn’t make clear enough in this post is that there was no Honda in this car. The engines were Rover (petrol) with modification or SAIC (diesel), the platform a trimmed down Rover 75, a post-Honda, BMW funded, Honda-free-zone and the styling was SAIC, by ex-Rover people.
The Rover development facility went to Ford with Land Rover, hence the MG6 evolution from the 75 came from SAIC and Ricardo principally, and therefore without Honda and/or BMW discipline and standards.
When BMW bought Rover, there were 4 Honda based cars – 200, 400, 600 and 800, all incurring licensing costs to Honda to some extent or another. Either BMW assumed Honda would be happy to continue with this or that they could supplant this with BMW/Rover products quickly. They tried the latter, with the 75 (not a great result but that was down to the style and positioning in the market, not the engineering) and the MINI, a hit all round, and the 2002 Range Rover as well. But getting the mid market right eluded them, sterling rose against the Euro, competitors upped their game (Focus, Golf Mk 4 and 5) and we got the answer we know. The industrial infrastructure was oversized as well, with Longbridge, Cowley and Solihull and sundry other smaller sites.
I’ll do a post on it one day.
My last visits to the U.K. were in 2003 and 2004, so I was completely unaware of these. A few paragraphs in, I started wondering if the Magnette name would have been more successful than MG6. Thanks for the answer. I did spend 2 weeks driving a rental Rover 75 all over England, 1.8 5 speed and found it very enjoyable. That was a period when I was busy with family and career, with little time to follow the car industry, so I just assumed the 75 was based on the Accord platform. Live and learn.
I didn’t know about this travesty on the Morris Garages MG brand, it still means something to me out here in the mountain west.
We in America have suffered a sin similar to this – a Buick “Envision” made in China.
The Envision has zero relationship to any historic Buicks that were made in and treasured in the US. It is made in China – a place held in contempt in the USA currently. They may even have three cylinder engines; I don’t know.
Not a single Buick has any historic anything about them anymore, and that’s really not even that recent. Once the Opel Regal dies later this year they literally only sell CUV’s, period. “That’s a Buick?” in the most literal sense now. As to products being made in China, people need to get over themselves. A boycott of Chinese goods is basically a boycott of anything that resembles an object or device that utilizes electronics. Good luck…
Lincoln is almost an all-crossover/SUV brand now too with the Continental being the only exception (and it looks unlikely to see another generation), yet somehow their lineup of SUVs feel Lincoln-esque and all-of-a-piece in a way that the three Buick crossovers don’t. None of them look or feel like Buicks, and their presence is largely redundant in GMC showrooms.
Let’s keep the politics as referenced in the second to last sentence vis a vis China out of this, please. That’s not an all-encompassing viewpoint and there’s always another side to a story depending on what/who one follows or decides is credible. It’s better discussed elsewhere.
Apparently when MG was relaunched in China after the takeover by Nanjing, MG now stood for “Modern Gentleman”.
cjguy and Jim: I wrote nothing about any “boycott” and nothing about “politics”. What I expressed was the similar hurt that those who admired the British MG feel now that a model of an American icon, Buick, is a silly vehicle made in (an unnamed foreign country so not to offend you) rather than an eight cylinder Roadmaster built in Flint. You are both reading much too much into my disappointment about the diminishment of MG and Buick automobiles. And to ignore that the unnamed foreign country has something to do with it is disingenuous.
I will be the first to apologize I did not understand your intent. Either way it’s a personal choice, and I respect it. Not my life, not my strife. I see your intention much clearer now, and I understand much better. I had no desire of making moral judgement calls or anything of the sort; my mind was more on track towards how so many “American” cars hail from Canada or Mexico, not here, with responses of shrugs.
Your quote was “China – a place held in contempt in the USA currently”. We are a site read worldwide. Your phrase indicates that the above viewpoint re China is held by all residents here. That is simply not the case. Please drop it and let’s please move on from that.
But if in fact you are merely speaking of the cars and where they are manufactured (or any other product), then I suggest your quarrel is not with China but rather with the American executives that have decided that building cars for the American market over there is in everyone’s interest and the British executives that decided to sell yet another one of their marques to a foreign company. The Chinese were given an opportunity and took it. Just like when a Chinese company sets up shop over here and employs Americans in Ohio or Brits in Britain or whatever.
Buicks have not been representative of that 8-Cylinder Roadmaster for some time now, I’m assuming you are speaking of the last built in the 1950’s Roadmaster and not the badge-engineered Chevy Caprice. I can point you to any number of 4-cylinder Skylarks, weezy 3.1 Century’s, horrific Rendezvous’, Buick Terraza’s, a rebadged Opel Cascada and many, many more that aren’t any more evocative of that Roadmaster than a Buick Envision is. Fact is, China purchases significantly more Buick-badged vehicles than North America does, they probably do think of the ’50’s Roadmaster when they shop for a Buick, that’s really the only reason it’s even still a brand over here.
I spotted this in taxi service in Havana earlier this year. I didn’t get a rear photo, but I’m fairly sure it was badged as an MG6.
The MG brand was relaunched here with the 6 and, from what I recall, it was just a giant bungle with a third-party distributor. I remember seeing a few randomly parked down a side street somewhere? And they sat there for the longest time.
The brand was withdrawn, then returned but with additional products. The 6 never amounted to much here and was quietly withdrawn. Surprisingly, it wasn’t just the ZS SUV that breathed new life (and sales) into the brand, it was the little 3 hatchback which is MG’s biggest seller here now that it’s finally available with an automatic.
I went to an MG showroom last year to see what their products are like and there’s a big jump in interior design and quality with every new MG product. The 6 was horribly hard and chintzy, though the design was ok. The GS had a sharper, more modern design but was still very hard plastic, though seemingly better put together. Then the ZS and facelifted 3 were another jump.
The new HS SUV, however, is the hugest jump yet. Genuinely a nice interior, better than a few established rivals!
Here, the sheer virtue of having a brand people have heard of has arguably given MG an edge over other Chinese brands like Haval. It doesn’t seem to matter that the new products aren’t as overtly sporty as MGs of old, it matters that people have a brand name they’ve heard of. MG even uses “Since 1924” in their signage and advertising.
All agreed.
Irrationally, it does feel better to think of buying a car with a known badge, especially when that badge carries vague old associations of fun or special cars for many. It just doesn’t carry the baggage it clearly had in Britain.
Interesting as usual, Mr Carr.
It’s a pity the car was a dud. To my eyes, it’s quite a good looker.
We saw an even smaller handful of them here – the interiors were atrocious, as you say, not for the design but the execution. They looked for all the world like a mock-up.
I’ve never seen that RDX60 pic before, nor was I aware they even got as far as that. From that one shot, it is an even bigger pity: it looks really good.
The style was not an issue. Quality, perceived and actual, economy, branding at that point in the market, depreciation and image (Chinese) were.
Regular radio adverts here are hypeing up a MG SUV about as far from Morris Garages sporting roots as they can get, is it sellin? I dont know I havent seen one on the road but with the country locked down traffic is sparse anyway.
They’re doing alright here, not highly visible, but certainly in numbers. Or were.
Btw, isn’t your job essential services, and if so, surely these must be the best traffic circs you’ve ever driven in?!
Mmmm, very well written summary Roger. A few of these around here; I still recall seeing my first one back in 2011. It was in that fabulous shade of orange; I didn’t know they were relaunching MG here so was intrigued to see a car I couldn’t identify ahead on the motorway. Nice exterior at the time; quite underwhelming now though. The interior was awful at the time; the facelift interior (did Britain get this?) was better but still lacking quality and class. MG has only just stopped selling these here, the last ones are still on dealer sellout. They didn’t connect with Kiwi buyers, although it probably wasn’t a brand matter as the MG3 and the SUVs are selling ok. It was more of a model thing: like you say, the MG6 just didn’t know what it was or wanted to be. But yes, such lovely colours…
There was talk as the Rover 75’s debut neared that they might bring it them in the U.S. along with, possibly, a future MG and definitely the new Mini. The car was engineered with federalization in mind (so said their press materials) and I was ready to buy if the car drove nicely. My uncle had a P6 i really liked and that made me a fan of the marque. Maybe in Britain Rovers were old people’s cars, but to me the 75 looked like a 3/4 scale Bentley, especially inside. Really, in America Rover was too obscure to have any image at all for most people. Sadly, talk of the company’s troubles filled the news just as the car was introduced, drowning out the mostly good reviews, and the 75 never seemed to have a chance.
From what I understand, Chinese car brands are widely regarded as less prestigious than imports in China. The established Asian, American, and European brands are more highly valued, and British cars, whose likes include Range Rover, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, and McLaren are the absolute top of the heap, Thus, that little operation where they’d finish up those semi knock down kits at Longbridge was essential to MG/Roewe marketing in China. The crucial message was MADE IN THE UK, all over the Chinese marketing materials and the factory walls.
The car itself seems underwhelming. I’m not surprised this when nowhere in Britain; despite that advert, it doesn’t pick up on the spirit of classic MG roadsters at all.
There was a point in about 2007 when MG’s owners decided that going forward the famous initials would stand for “Modern Gentleman” rather than Morris Garages.
Brand equity…
I’ve never heard anything about this car until I clicked on the article, I was totally ignorant of it’s existence. It seems to me from reading this that MG tried to benchmark the Jetta, a 90s era one from the poor VW quality and build era and they hit their targets pretty well.