HOW THE FUTURE LOOKS AT LONGBRIDGE
Longbridge has made its last production car and SAIC is now in the process of handing back the chunks of the facility that it no longer needs to St Modwen, the developer that bought the site from a desperate MG Rover more than a decade ago. Those land parcels include the famous car assembly buildings, and possibly the office block known as the Kremlin, where the Mini was born. All will be redeveloped, the Longbridge complex already a more vibrant and colourful place than it has been in decades.
And as sales and marketing chief Matthew Cheyne says: “Who’s to say that in five years’ time that we’ll be better off with car production in the UK?” Cheyne is planning on a doubling of UK sales in 2018 with the ZS, this being the first sign of the rise of the SAIC sleeping giant. If his dreams are realised, we could one day see a brand-new MG plant.