Who do you think is the nearest competitor to the MG Brand?
One of the reasons I was attracted to work at MG was because the brand has such wide appeal. I think people have always tried and (and still do try) to Pigeon hole MG as if it's a competitor for this, or a competitor for that. It's clearly a sporty brand so people come up with the likes of SEAT, Mazda or say it could be a potential Alfa Romeo in the future.
If you look at the market place I see three clear sectors, the value for money brands if you like, the Kia, Skodas and Hyundais, there are the Volume brands, the likes of Ford, GM, Nissan, PSA, Renault etc.. and then you have the more niche, specialist brands, such as Mazdas and the SEATs. I think the beauty of MG is it will pull from all 3 of those groups, it will offer fantastic value for money, it'll be sporty, but not extreme sporty, say like Lotus. It never has been extreme to that degree, it's always had broader appeal. It will also be a very good alternative to those mainstream vehicles. i.e. why shouldn't someone who goes to buy a Focus have a look at the MG6?
How has the economic downturn affected the plans NAC / SAIC had when they bought the company for the TF and MG itself.
It hasn't affected the investment plans for the future models, so MG6 still comes at the end of 2010, what it has affected clearly is the sales of the TF sports car. Clearly the TF is a niche product anyway the 2 seater sports car market has been dramatically affected, dropping some 40% over two years and thus we basically lost 40% of the market forecast when the company bought the remains of MG Rover. It also tends to be a discretionary purchase, many people buy them as not their every day car but a car that people have as a 2nd or even 3rd car, that sort of thing really dries up in a recession.
Clearly loosing that amount of the market space, limiting yourselves to that degree does question the confidence in the business. The good thing is that we've now turned around TF sales, they're increasing after a very difficult time and the future model programmes are still progressing.
So over all the impact wasn't significant on the big scale of things, only for TF really.
Have you thought about a "low spec" version of the TF, along say the lines of the old 115 - albeit still with the 135 engine - you know, less options, different trim etc.. and selling it for £9995
At £9,995 there is no money in the car. We're only selling 4-500 cars a year, so we need to keep the communication to the public very simple. You need to balance it really, when we launched the LE 500 there was a lot more spec [compared to the 135] but more money, which was the right decision at the time. Then what happened was the recession which ended up meaning that the price of the LE500 needed to be challenged. I think where we are with the 135 is the right balance of specification and price, which is a lot of car for the money. I don't think people want a stripped out car, unless you can dramatically reduce the price and we're not able to do that, so what we have is the right combination.
Do you think in time that Austin could serve the purpose Rover used to?
Yeah, interesting question! Clearly Austin is still a very important part of this company's history, we respect that, we kept Lord Austin's office here, the Austin name is part of the business, who knows! I think if you look at how the automotive market has developed, especially in China in the last few years, the world has changed, the balance of power has changed. Brands which have been a failure in America, such as Buick are now a success in China, who knows what could be achieved. I'd like to think that yes there may well be something there, but that's really all I can say on that one.
