04 Jun 07
The mass withdrawal from the little roadster market needn't be a bad omen. The Smart didn't sell in huge numbers, but it wasn't meant to. What actually scuppered it was the dismal sales record of a different model, the Forfour, which undermined parent company DaimlerChrysler's faith in the whole Smart project. The Roadster was always a good car, with a cult following and a possible future in another guise.
Similarly, the long-running MR2 was another fine car that was only ever intended to be a niche product. In a good year, it sold about 1,800 in the UK. It was dropped - along with the Celica and the Previa - because Toyota in Europe decided that it needed to concentrate on big sellers like the Corolla/Auris and Avensis.
This suggests that there's room for a company making a good-looking, driver-orientated roadster and selling it at a sub-MX-5 price. NAC is talking about its production capacity at Longbridge being 15,000 cars a year - not just for the UK but for the whole of Europe, and not all of those cars will be TFs, if the big saloon returns and if a possible new model follows. Globally, it's talking about 200,000 cars. It might just about add up.
NAC's boss spoke of the UK having 'a proven affection for MG'. He added: 'It's also one of the best known brands in the automotive industry around the world. We are the inheritors of this brand. We will continue to write new chapters for MG.'
Is this wishful thinking? Towards the end of its life, MG Rover didn't hook in many new, young customers and its older loyalists are gravitating to Skodas and Japanese or Korean cars.
