MG Rover Group
 |
|
| Industry | Automobiles |
|---|---|
| Fate | Liquidated |
| Predecessor | Rover Group |
| Successor |
SAIC MG Motor Jaguar Cars Land Rover BMW (MINI) |
| Founded | 2000 (1878 Rover Company) (1924 MG Cars) |
| Defunct | April 2005 |
| Headquarters | Longbridge, Birmingham, UK |
|
Number of locations
|
Longbridge plant, Birmingham Cofton Hackett |
|
Key people
|
John Towers, Chairman |
| Parent | Phoenix Venture Holdings |
| Subsidiaries | MG Sport & Racing MG X Power Qvale Mangusta BL Heritage Brands Rover Company MG Cars Longbridge Plant |
| Website | mg-rover.com |
John Towers, Chairman
Peter Stevens Chief Designer
The MG Rover Group was the last domestically owned mass-production car manufacturer in the British motor industry. The company was formed when BMW sold the car-making and engine manufacturing assets of the original Rover Group to the Phoenix Consortium in 2000.
MG Rover went into administration in 2005 and its key assets were purchased by Nanjing Automobile Group, with Nanjing restarting MG sports car and sports saloon production in 2007. During that year Nanjing merged with SAIC Motor (the largest vehicle manufacturer in China). During 2009 the UK Subsidiary was renamed MG Motor UK. The MG TF was manufactured at the former MG Rover Longbridge plant and sold within the UK from 2008 - 2010. In 2011 the first all new MG for 16 years (the MG 6) was launched in the UK (assembled at the Longbridge factory). During 2013 a super-mini was added to the line up (the MG 3), this went on to help MG Motor become the fastest growing car manufacturer within the UK in 2014.
The Rover brand, which had been retained by BMW and licensed to MG Rover, was sold to Ford, which had bought Land Rover from BMW in 2000. The rights to the dormant Rover brand were sold by Ford, along with the Jaguar Cars and Land Rover businesses, to Tata Motors in 2008.
MG Rover was formed from the parts of the former Rover Group volume car production business which BMW sold off in 2000 due to constant losses and a declining market share. BMW had acquired the Rover Group from British Aerospace in 1994 and had since sold the Land Rover business to Ford, and split off the MINI business as a new BMW subsidiary based in Cowley. MG Rover took control of the volume component of the former Rover Group (itself the remaining rump of British Leyland, which in turn had its roots in the even older British Motor Corporation, formerly Austin and Morris), which by now consisted solely of the Longbridge assembly plant in Birmingham. Of the Rover Group's other two major plants; Solihull had already been divested as part of the sale of Land Rover to Ford, whilst the Cowley and Swindon plants were retained by BMW for the production of the new MINI family of vehicles. As part of these changes, all remaining Rover volume production at Cowley (essentially now just the Rover 75 as the Rover 600/800 ranges had already been discontinued by this point), was moved to Longbridge, whilst MG Rover would be allowed to continue manufacturing the original Mini at Longbridge until the new MINI was launched by BMW a year later.
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Wikipedia