Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) MG vs Ferrari

A bit of a rant....

I guess my Luddite tendencies may be somewhat irritated by a Chinese manufacturer using the MG identity, not that I blame the Chinese for recognising the value of a brand and how much a name can add to the perception of value in the marketplace...Just that it rubs me up the wrong way to some extent....

I am very fond of many of the convenience factors that my Chinese built American design (?) Tesla provides, I often make use of it`s squirtability from standstill, in traffic situations. The Tesla like most modern machines has far more functions available than I could even be bothered to delv into, and the idea of it sounding like a Ferrari is of no interest to me whatsoever, and worse still the idea of interrupting the otherwise smooth transition form standstill to whatever speed one wishes to attain, by creating minute pauses to simulate manual gear changing, would seem nonsensical and potentially adding some strain in the drive system over time..!

My choice of sports cars over the years has ever been competition related to the American marketing one liner, Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.... thus my first dream car was an old Lotus Elan.... which in time was followed by another couple of Lotus models. In time having read an article on the 911 and that it was the preferred personal transport of none other than the autojourno Jenks, to transport him from race meetings all around Europe based on performance and reliability... I was sold, the idea of reliability had been worn a tad thin in my Lotus exploits.

By my mid fifties I had owned, restored and run quite a few cars, and roads were becoming busier, thus I returned to m/cycling for B road enjoyment for a year or two...

Perhaps it was that .err..maturity had arrived, call it a growing degree of nostalgia felt if you will, and which vintage sports cars seemed to exude....As close as I could get to that kind of driver involvement, was thought to be a Morgan, the idea of a large engine, in a hand built wooden frame covered by hand formed panels created by craftsmen using time honoured skills, was more than vintage and heritage enough for me.. Today some 23 years into the custodianship of my mid 80`s +8 it still sits im my garage ready to GO, any time a mix of mood and weather combine to cause me to fire it up... What`s more to want...?

All that rambling to suggest that the name MG stuck on anything is of zero real world value to me in any way shape or form, unless attached to a British made sports car.

Like many here I suspect we have seen similar marketing ploys to attract those of us of a certain age and who have witnessed the use and abuse of badge engineering related to hard won historic reputation nailed onto something either very loosely related, or totally unrelated to that which went before..In this company I suspect I have no need to present examples..

I guess it is an age thing, and if the young think an EV that looks like a sports car is the business, then who am I to disagree....? (-:

He had the V6TDI Alistair. I remember you having the V10.

They bought MG quite legally off Phoenix in the 90s. Yes I would prefer a UK company to make MGs but look at Lotus , the Chinese bought the brand and now production has stopped at Hethel.

Wow, Really ? I thought the launch of the Emira was delayed a couple of years ago because they were installing new production lines in the old factory ?

The East Anglian Daily Times calls it a pause.
Text reads:

Lotus has suspended the production of one of its sports cars at its Norfolk factory, sending staff home.

The Hethel-based car manufacturer has temporarily paused production of its Emira sports cars after announcing this week that new models will replace its first editions.

It comes after Lotus finally received US emissions certification to sell its Emira sports cars across the Atlantic.

Emira was first announced for the US market in 2021, but despite hundreds being shipped to the country they had been stuck at dealerships as Lotus awaited certification by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) - the emissions approval needed in 14 states.

A Lotus spokesman said: "With the latest Emira model year now certified, Lotus Cars has temporarily paused Emira production in the factory to prepare manufacturing for this.

"During this time, the business is focused on improving production operations to restart operations at optimised efficiency.

"We are working through these updates to get full production resuming as soon as possible."

With mention of Lotus I looked up the Emira - I see some similarity between the Emira and MG back ends ?




pichost

What I am curious to know is what SAIC paid for the MG name and whether the marketing the famous 100 year old badge gives them has been worth it rather than making up their own name and badge

The Cyberster was designed in London so I guess as much UK as your Chinese built Tesla is American. I thought American sold Teslas might have been made in America, as far as I know all Australian Teslas are made in China. I think there is no choice but Chinese made for me for most EV's on the Australian market


What about the Fart seat noises my Brother in Law uses it all the time in his Tesla, I guess it gives him something to entertain himself seeing he doesn't have a clutch pedal


Agreed. I am hoping in 23 years I will be an 84 year old guy still driving my Australian Frontline style MGB with a grin as big as it gives me now


Say my wife decided she wanted a smallish EV, she doesn't as she loves her Skoda so this is a very academic question. I would have bought a Tesla in the past for the charging network but I feel the other EV charging networks are catching up, so the current choices I feel in the Australian market are now Tesla 3, MG4 or BYD. Still not keen on the Tesla 3s lack of a real dash with a speedo in front of the driver so that leaves the MG4 or a BYD. I feel the BYD is possibly a better car so my head says go that way but my heart wants a badge that will match my MGB in the garage so I could be tempted to go MG4, it will go down to test drives and price etc. but the MG has a chance as I like the name and badge. Now if SAIC had decided to instead of buying the MG brand to call the company say ABC for Another Boring Car (and really the MG3 etc. are pretty boring) then made the ABC4 identical to the MG4 would I be tempted by the ABC4, the answer is not as much as a MG4 with that lovely badge I like.

I feel Tesla and MG have been doing the complete opposite, Tesla built the Roadster first and got my attention and have not built anything to get me excited since. Instead all they have done is annoyed me by saying they are making another Roadster and dragging it out for nearly a decade and the prices they are mentioned are well out of reach anyway, I would have been happier if they had kept the original Roadster available but it was still stupidly expensive. Initially MG built boring cars that don't appeal at all and I only took any notice due to the brand and then came out with the Cyberster. A car that is visually nicer than anything Tesla (or for that matter any EV manufacturer) so far has made, half the cost of the first Tesla Roadster, 1/4 the cost of the new vapourware Roadster, a true convertible and even has a Badge I like.

The main thing I don't like about the SAIC MG's is they built all those cheap nasty cars first that to me are out of character of the Legend MG is. Maybe they had to so the younger people knew they existed? Any thoughts? Also any thoughts on why Tesla stopped the Roadster and won't make anything nice any more, the Cyber Truck is probably the most visually disgusting car ever designed.

The MG Rover Group was acquired by the SAIC subsidiary Nanjing Automotive, the MG brand transferred to SAIC when Nanjing went bust.

I'm not sure how much value the Chinese put on the brands they acquired. A private individual from Essex called John Stubbs bought both the "Austin" name and trademark for £170 and now markets the all-electric "Arrow" under the Austin brand.

BMW owned the name in 1994 and they built the little MGF two seaters

In 2000 BMW sold the name to the MG Rover Group but they went into receivership in 2006, and Nanjing Automobile Group bought the rights to the MG name for £53million.

In 2007 NAG 'merged' with SAIC (it was more like a takeover).

Read this & you realise how big SAIC is .
SAIC history