Friday 1st August 2008

Full-scale car manufacturing resumed at the historic Longbridge plant, in the West Midlands, with the production of the two-seater MG TF LE500 sports car. The facility in Birmingham was mothballed when MG Rover collapsed three years earlier with the loss of 6,000 jobs. The company’s Chinese owners, Shanghai Automotive (SAIC), said nearly half of the 700 MG TFs costing £16,400, it hoped to produce by the end of the year had already been sold.