MG drops plan to sell TF in North America

Shanghai, August 28 (Gasgoo.com) Officials at Nanjing Automobile Group said there are no plans to sell the MG brand in North America, the Automotive News reported Tuesday. 

"The U.S.A. isn't on the short-term radar as an anticipated market for us, but with the right product, it would be good to return there," Gary Hagen, marketing director of NAC MG, told a reporter for the British Web site Austin Rover Online.

The report cites Hagen as saying plans to build MGs in Oklahoma from kits shipped from China also have been scrapped. Other NAC officials denied knowledge of the matter while Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., or SAIC, said they have never heard of the plan.

NAC — which took over Britain’s MG after its collapse in 2005 — announced plans to build a factory as well as an R&D center in Ardmore, Oklahoma to produce the next-generation TF coupe. Construction of the plant is scheduled to be completed in 2008.

But NAC has since been taken over by SAIC which, some insiders say, certainly had some impact on NAC's overseas plans. They also admitted that it might be hard for NAC to carry out its project with or without SAIC's takeover.

Good news has it that early this month SAIC has started manufacturing two-seater MG TF sports cars at the former Rover plant at Longbridge in Birmingham as planned.

NAC MG abandons plan to sell TF in North America