A somewhat tired looking MG7, seen in the eastern suburbs of the Chinese capital Beijing. The good MG was painted in a very British shade of green, and fitted with shiny silver alloys.
The MG7 was manufactured by Nanjing Auto, and based on the Rover 75/MG ZT. Nanjing Auto acquired the platform and the MG name in 2005. Production in China started in 2007 and ended in 2013.
In 2008, SAIC bought Nanjing Auto. SAIC, a far larger company, had managed to acquire the rights to the Rover 75, but not to the Rover name. SAIC therefore called their Rover 75 the Roewe 750. Amazingly, production of the Roewe 750 continued all the way until 2016!
Today, MG and Roewe are still owned by SAIC. Roewe is the bigger success in China, but the MG brand is the main export name.
This is an early China-made car with the original Rover 75 interior (yes, those were messy deals), with beautiful leather, wood, and British style.
The MG7 was available with two MG-Rover engines: the 2.5 V6 and the 1.8 turbo. Our Beijing car has the latter under the bonnet. Rated output was 120 hp and 160 Nm. The engine was mated to a 5-speed manual or a 5-speed automatic, as in this car. Price, in 2008, started at 162.600 yuan.
Rear bench looks very flat.
Twin-pipe on the left side.
A Chinese-British classic in Beijing. Happily, there are still a lot of these great cars around, but ever stricter emissions regulations make live hard for the earlier cars.
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