I sucked the following off the UK MGF website......the legal issue whcih
Graeme refers to actually predates the Sterling, and is one of the mian
reasons why they went for the Sterling name in the first place; BL
extricated itself so badly from the US market, that many dealers who
used to sell MG's, and didn't settle up amicably with BL in 1981, might
even now have the right to stand up and say "I have the right to sell
any new MG". If your livelihood had been decimated by the mandarins at
BL, you would probably understand their feelings! You can bet that BMW's
lawyers are on the case....
... David K.
Text by Graeme Bishko follows:
The F in America
This is a paraphrasing of comments made by Stephen Cox at an MG Car Club
F register meeting in October 1996. Stephen Cox is an employee of MG Car
Company which is a subsidiary of Rover.
The MGF will not be sold in the USA within 6 years. 6 years is the
expected life of the model so the MGF will never be sold in its present
configuration in the USA. There are two main reasons for this.
It was known from the start of the project that the car would not be
sold in the US. The market is very tough and MG did not want to do what
they did with the MGB and lose money on every car sold. Production was
set at 16,000 units per year and it was recognised that it would take
twice that number to satisfy the US in addition to the rest of the
world. At this stage (1 year into sales) it would cost a huge amount to
double production and doubling production would be the minimum step up
in production. MG will not even consider this.
The second reason (which is a supporting reason for the original
decision not to go into the US) is one of legal problems with a dealer
network left over from the Rover Sterling sales attempt in the 80's.
This problem is not insurmountable but contributed to making the US
market even less attractive.
BMW's Z3 had absolutely nothing to do with the original decision. BMW
had no connection with Rover back when the production levels were set
and any information that MG might have had on the Z3 back then would
have been very sketchy. In fact, in the UK, MG feels that they are
picking up sales from the Z3 waiting list. There were a number of
serious enquiries at the motor show from both prospective Z3 and Merk
SLK customers. They even consider it likely that after driving the
superior J F, some of these people may cancel their Z3 orders and stick
with the F.
Currently the only MGF's in the US belong to Ford and are kept in
Detroit. MGF's were climate tested in MGF's were climate tested in the
US but those ones are no longer there. The car is pretty much US spec
already but there would need to be some reworking of bumpers and
re-testing of materials. MG don't consider that it would cost very much
to
The long term plans are for MG to return to the US. This would be on the
back of a concerted movement of a number of Rover models and will not be
within the lifetime of the F.
Obviously Stephen wouldn't say any more about future plans for MG but it
was satisfying to hear that there are some!
Disclaimer: The above constitutes the gist of what was said to me (and
others). I was given permission to repeat all of this and to attach
Stephen Cox's name to it. If any of this is untrue (or I misunderstood
Stephen) I will withdraw it as soon as I am made aware of this.
Contributed by Graeme Bishko.
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