It’s been around for more than 100 years, has little ol’ MG. But the once British, now Chinese-owned firm says it’s selling more cars to buyers in the UK than ever. And an unusually large proportion of those vehicles are being purchased not by companies or rental firms, but by private individuals who enthusiastically buy into MG’s no-nonsense, take-it-or-leave-it sales pitch that speaks of advanced tech, outstanding value and, er, that’s about it.
Advertisement – Article continues below
We should never forget that at the start of the 2000s, Longbridge-based MG was something of a basket case: unloved, orphaned, loss-making, forced into administration, bereft of the relative glamour and sales successes of its former ‘superior’ (or maybe not?) family members, Jaguar and Land Rover.
Wind forward a couple of decades and MG began – and continues – to shift massively more new cars than those JLR marques combined. This was the case before and after the mothballing of Jaguar production facilities. And this is the way things will remain for the foreseeable future, because, even when the production lines restart, Jags will be built and sold in strictly limited volumes.
But MG is also way ahead of another former clan member, MINI. Put another way, in the first six months of this year, of all the British born-and-bred brands still going, MG sits very comfortably in second place, just behind Vauxhall. But not for much longer. This summer season, MG is already selling more cars than Vauxhall, and is therefore on course to take the undisputed No.1 slot by the end of the year, if not sooner.
Advertisement – Article continues below
