China Car Times

According to the BBC:

Full-scale car production at the former Rover plant at Longbridge, Birmingham, will restart later.

Shanghai Automotive (SAIC) said nearly half the orders for its new model, the MG TF, which will come from the historic plant, have already been sold. The company has 55 dealers across the UK and believes the first cars will be with customers by next month.

MG Rover, then owned by the Phoenix Consortium, collapsed in 2005 with the loss of about 6,000 jobs. The company was bought by the Nanjing Automobile Corporation for £53m but they were taken over by SAIC.

There are currently about 165 workers at Longbridge but the figure is likely to rise, according to the company. SAIC said it hopes to produce 700 MG TFs by the end of the year. The car will cost nearly £16,500. Eleanor De La Haye, of MG UK, said: “We are delighted to have reached this important point and are looking forward to seeing the cars in showrooms shortly.”

Longbridge, opened in 1905 by motoring legend Herbert Austin, was home to the Metro and Rover 200 before being sold to BMW in 1994. But the MG Rover group went into administration in 2005 under the stewardship of the Phoenix Consortium.