Abbreviation for Morris Garages, where versions of Morris cars where being made.
MG (England) 1923 to 2004 :: China 2005 to date.
Few marque histories have been as blurred and misquoted as has the MG one. Nobody can state with certainty when the first MGs were produced, though the honour should probably fall to the six Raworth-bodied, two-seater sports cars the founder, Cecil Kimber, commissioned to be built on Morris-Cowley chassis in 1923.
Update: Chinese carmaker Nanjing Automotive has secured ownership of MG Rover for an unknown sum, after a three-way bidding battle spread over three months. It was one of two Chinese companies trying to buy the assets of MG Rover, the other being Shanghai Automotive.
Although Nanjing was the smaller firm it secured a deal with administrators Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) on Friday, July 22nd, 2005.
"Nanjing will now begin to take control of the assets and develop its plans for the future," said Tony Lomas of PwC. The news is a blow for UK businessman David James, whose Kimber group had put in two bids to buy parts of Rover. Earlier this week Mr James, the company-recovery specialist who helped revive the Millennium Dome, told the BBC the combined value of his bid would be about 40m. (source: BBC ).
In China, MG no longer stands for Morris Garages, instead it means "Modern Gentleman", although that is unlikely to be used on export models. (source: Road&Track).
This was while Kimber was still Manager of Morris Garages - from where the MG name originated. The Hotchkiss-engined car so often and erroneously referred to as Number One did not, in fact, appear for another two years, and was more accurately Kimber's first attempt at building a car solely for competition.
The first model to be built in any numbers (about 400 was the 14/28 Super Sport, which came with either two or four seats and open or closed bodies.
From then until 1952, when the Nuffield Group of which MG was a part amalgamated with the Austin Motor Company to form BMC, the prolific little firm at Abingdon, Berks., produced countless sports and saloon cars for both road and track, breaking record upon record on the way.
Though they now bear the Leyland stamp, the 1979 MGBs and Midgets nevertheless owe much to their ancestry, of which the famous M, P and T Type Midgets and the larger K and N Type Magnettes are just a part.
Today all MGs are sought after, not least the early racers with histories and the later classics such as the pretty TF and the fast, Twin-Cam MGA.
(Vintage European Automobiles)
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