I thought the MG zero concept was the MG3?
There does seem to be a lot of MG bashing going on, especially within the MG owners forums, which is where you would expect to see the most support.
The MG motor UK company may be owned by the chinese, but they are still british designed and engineered cars, but made in china so that they can actually afford to make them. I can live with that.
We'll all need replacements for our ZS' at some point, and MG Motor UK need to establish themselves with their bread and butter car, their 3 series so to speak. Then they can start to think about branching out in to more interesting cars - I hope the MG5 as above makes the light of day with a decent engine, as I do like the look of them, reminds me a bit of the mazda 3 which is no bad thing.
The comparison to the BMW 1 series is interesting, given where that came from...
(from Wikipedia, the most reliable of sources)
Rumoured origins
In 1996, BMW owned the Rover Group, and was preparing a new car that would replace their Rover 200 and 400 ranges, called Project R30, developed jointly with Project R50 and R40, that would become, respectively, the New Mini and the Rover 75.[3] The new model, which would have been badged as the Rover 55, was planned to be built in the Longbridge plant alongside the New Mini, and BMW were granted a ?152 million subsidy by the British government to refurbish the plant.[3]
In 2000, development was close to completion, but after BMW sold the Rover Group, the project's rights were taken by BMW, which stopped the project and kept the only working prototype in their headquarters of Munich.[3] Although BMW tried to sell the project's rights, first to MG Rover and later to a number of Chinese car manufacturers, the model never entered production.[3]
It has been rumoured that the Rover R30 was finished by BMW and transformed into the BMW 1-Series.[3] However, BMW have stated that the 1-Series is unrelated to the R30, and was developed alongside the E90 3-Series.[4]
Last edited by caled; 25-02-11 at 01:16 PM.
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