You may have seen the article on a TF successor in AutoExpress last week. How near the mark was it, or was it basically mostly fiction!?
It was pretty much all made up! The truth is that a new sports car is part of the product plan, but we don't want to talk about a new sportscar at the moment , mainly because we need to build a new business and sell the car we do have. We have the MG6 coming at the end of the year, we've just shown the MG Zero concept car to show where the brand can go next, there is no need to talk about new sportscars now . I think we know what will happen when we announce a new sports car program, the world will go wild about a new MG sportscar, an MGB successor etc.. , more so than perhaps an MG TF successor.
There is a time for that, but it's not now, MG Sportscars, yes, are part of the product plan but we have not got anything official to say on the matter now and won't have for some time. We have MG6 to focus on, along with other things, e.g. products that come along after MG6, but it is part of the brand and clearly we need a sportscar in the line up.
During the MGR days, Mira worked with MG to produce a Hybrid TF, how far off do you think we are from seeing an all-electric or a hybrid MG?
Well, there's an all electric car on the SAIC stand at the Beijing motorshow today, the E1. They've invested heavily into electric and hybrid technology, and the first result of that investment is on the stand today. Clearly the group is demonstrating the results of that the investment into Electric and hybrid powerplants and drivetrains, so you'll just have to watch the communications from the group and see what happens.
The MG6 is being launched without a Diesel Derivative, what affect to you think this will have on the launch of the car & when will the diesel derivate launch?
We hope to launch the diesel version 12 months after the petrol. They're not launching at the same time because we are developing an all-new 1.9 Diesel engine, it's an MG design, being produced within the group and it's not going to be ready in time. In terms of the affect on the launch, we want to establish MG6 in the retail market first of all, we don't have the capability to go straight into the major fleet and volumes that we want to with the product and the brand. So I think the petrol version will allow us to focus on the retail market, but we'll clearly be able to increase sales when the Diesel version comes online, but we need to plan the Diesel entry into lease and fleet sectors in the next 12 months to be effective so we need that time to bring the car to market anyway. It will significantly change the volume, but we need to build up the process here and the dealer network to cope with the volume growth.
Is the G-Series diesel, developed by Powertrain in the run up to April 2005 completely dead?
I can't comment on that, all I can say is that we will have a family of Diesel engines going forward, developed by ourselves. Whether any learning was taken out of the G Series I really can't say, I don't know, it's something I'd need to look into, to be honest.
With the TF I understand you have a reasonably free hand to source components for the car, so whilst the main components come in from China, you could say, source new bumpers, dash, trim, seats etc.. and build a different car here than in China. Is this the case with the MG6?
Given that we source globally and the group is based in China and a lot of the component manufacturers are also in China, a lot of the stuff comes from there. In respect of are we constrained by the features and design of the car - no, I think when you see the MG6 (we've still got some surprises up our sleeves for the launch of MG6, people haven't seen everything yet) you can tell it's been very much benchmarked on the leading European players and the quality is obvious when you sit in it. People say it's a Chinese car tuned for European tastes, when in fact it was a European design, designed right here in the UK, by the team here in Birmingham and designed for Europe - China in fact got a European car and adapted it for China, not the other way around. You wouldn't have got comments like 'Best in class' in association with ride and handling if it was a car designed for China and then tuned for Europe.
The Monogram range of paints and program that MG Rover used to have, allowed customers to customise their cars with special paint and trim options. Do you think you will offer something similar?
Not initially, it's something for the future. We want to get back to producing cars and provide a good range of choice that covers most of the market. Things like this can come later.
