Autoblog

There's a new MG TF on its way to replace the current TF, which is once again rolling out the doors at its Longbridge, UK ancestral home. The new TF will be available as a roadster, natch, and as a coupe, and based on the Roewe 550. AutoExpress has worked up some renderings based on insider information about the new rear-drive MG, and the car amounts to a smorgasbord of cues from a variety of unfortunately styled vehicles. There's a lot of X80 concept, a dash of the crosseyed Qvale Mangusta, and a peppering or two of the MG SV, too. The end result looks like something Noddy assembled in a candlelit workshop, but then again, so does the existing MG TF.

The underlying platform for the new TF is one of the last vestiges of MG Rover, and would have been used for the MG ZS/Rover 45 replacement. Ricardo also played a role in the development of the chassis, which will have a turbocharged 1.8-liter four and a 2.5-liter V6 as power options. Still, more coupes in the MX5's sandbox can't be a bad thing, so we wish the new MG TF well, and hope that it comes to the United States for a proper taunting.

[Source: Auto Express]

Click above for a high-res gallery of the Daimler Super 8

While most of the automotive press is reporting on Tata's acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford's Premier Automotive Group, the fine print shows that the Indian automaker got a whole package of classic British marques to go along with them. In addition to Jaguar and Land Rover, Tata also acquired the rights to use the names of Rover, Daimler and Lanchester.

The Rover name previously belonged to BMW, which bought the Rover group 14 years ago. Although Shanghai (SAIC) bought the rights to produce Rover products, BMW refused to license the name to them (leaving SAIC to label its cars Roewe), instead selling it to Ford who secured the name to avoid confusion with Land Rover. The Daimler name, through an age-old licensing agreement with the Mercedes parent company, is used by Jaguar for a line of even more luxurious versions of its XJ sedan range. The Lanchester name is likewise attached to Jaguar, but having produced its first motor car in 1895, has laid dormant since 1956.

Although the three brands are barely in use, they transfer ownership to Tata along with Jaguar and Land Rover. The option will remain Tata's whether or not to utilize the names, but we wouldn't expect the Indian auto giant to lay out the cash to launch additional brands while it shoulders the financial burden of the $2.3 billion acquisition. We wouldn't be surprised, however, to see Tata license any of the names it can to help raise the funds.

[Source: Automotive News Europe – subscription required]

Land Rovers have run Jaguar's rorty AJ V8 engine since Ford got tired of sourcing engines from BMW. CAR magazine has dug up information on some mules running around in Finland with a new 4997cc engine underhood. Their photographers also caught the vehicles while they hung out in a parking lot full of tantalizing 2 and 7 series Volvos. While the AJ is a great motor, it's well into its design life. Range Rover's new engine is being developed with Bosch, and sports direct fuel injection to boost efficiency while keeping power up and emissions down. Output is rumored at 350 horsepower in naturally aspirated form and 460 ponies come to the party when a supercharger pressurizes the intake. The new engine will wind up in the engine compartment of Land Rovers, Range Rovers, and Jaguars, and will be part of a freshening of Landies and Rangies expected to drop soon.

[Source: CAR]

MG's former Longbridge, UK headquarters has been pretty quiet since production ceased in 2005. Newly-merged owners SAIC and Nanjing want the clatter of carbuilding to once again echo through the plant and plan to base their European and overseas operations there. The plant itself has the capability to build up to three different models; the challenge is deciding which of the former rival's products to build there. MG TF roadsters will likely lead the charge, with cars due at retail locations by March 1st. MG Rover holdovers could return to their roots if SAIC/Nanjing decide to build the MG 3 and MG 7, while the newly deisgned Roewe W2, pictured above, looks like a solid possibility, as well. In addition to manufacturing, R&D and sales efforts will also be strengthened. From the sound of things, it won't be long before Longbridge is once again turning out cars (some of the same cars, even) at a healthy clip.

[Source: Auto News - sub req]

The twisted saga of MG's resurrection from the ashes at the hands of Chinese automakers has come full circle. Last year both SAIC Motor Corp. and Nanjing Automobile Corp. fought tooth and nail for the right to build MGs in England, and Nanjing, the smaller of the two automakers by far, won. Since then the Chinese automaker has been trying to begin production of a new MG roadster at the company's plant in Longbridge, England. SAIC, meanwhile, accepted the defeat and instead purchased some MG production equipment and began building Rover sedans in China under the Roewe name (Ford had cleverly exercised its option to purchase the Rover name from BMW, which meant that SAIC had to name its Rover sedans something else).

SAIC has gotten the last laugh, however, with its recent purchase of Nanjing. Nanjing bought Rover for an estimated $100 million back in 2005, while SAIC reportedly has agreed to pay around $1.9 billion for Nanjing.This means that everything SAIC lost out on in the bidding war over MG it has gained by acquiring Nanjing. Most importantly, this includes the Longbridge production facility. SAIC already has an R&D center in Britain, which it will consolidate with the Longbridge facility and use to begin production of vehicles in Europe. The automaker claims production of the MG roadster, as well as other MG models, will begin soon, though SAIC can also use those facilities for development and production of new vehicles for the European market sold under its own name. Why is MG so darn important to these Chinese automakers? As an established European brand with some street cred, MG is a small company that offers the Chinese an easy way into the lucrative European market. Perhaps instead of Rovers, we'll soon see Roewe sedans on the streets of London.

[Source: Reuters]

Industry analysts widely agree that one of the principal factors preventing Chinese automakers from succeeding outside of China is the local industry's fragmentation, with over 100 automakers vying for their slice of the proverbial pie. However, a merger announced Wednesday between two major Chinese automakers, Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corp (SAIC) and Nanjing Automotive Group, stands a stronger chance of succeeding in the international car market as a larger group.

The merger, which has been long anticipated, involves SAIC paying $285.7 million for Nanjing. In return, Nanjing's parent company acquires 4.9 percent of SAIC Motor Corp.

The products of SAIC's joint ventures with GM and Volkswagen Group account for 14% of the domestic market in China, selling 1.25 million vehicles in the first ten months of 2007. Nanjing, meanwhile, sold less than 80,000 over the same period, making the acquisition a merger in the same sense as Mercedes had "merged" with Chrysler. Nanjing, however, owns MG Rover, whose plants in England SAIC hopes to use as a foothold into the European market.

[Source: Automotive News – subscription required]

click above image for more views of the NASA Chariot rover

Any good article about space exploration starts with "when I was a kid...". So, when I was a kid, my older brother was working on his college thesis. He cooperated with NASA on designing various devices for use in space, the basic premise being that few of the things we take for granted here on Earth would work in a zero-gravity environment. Everything needed for use in space needs to be redesigned.

Recently Goodyear and NASA announced a collaboration in developing a special non-pneumatic tire to be used by vehicles on the Moon, and potentially, on Mars, in support of a 2004 presidential mandate to further exploration on the celestial bodies. This isn't the first time Goodyear has collaborated with NASA to develop special moon-tires, having spent over ten years developing a piano-wire-mesh tire for the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle in the 1960s. However, the new Chariot vehicle (pictured above) is expected to support ten times more weight and travel 100 times longer than the Apollo, so Goodyear's Akron Technical Center and NASA's Glenn Research Center are developing a stronger version by testing and re-testing the Apollo's wheel and tire set-up to determine where they break down. Better here than out there, because as big a pain as it is to change a tire down here, imagine mounting a spare in space.

The researchers expect to demonstrate the Chariot, with its special tires, a year from now at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, after which, they say, the findings could be applied towards the development of new tires for use here on Earth.

[Source: Goodyear]

England has an illustrious history of producing beautiful motorized transportation. Unfortunately, many of the Queen's car companies are either in big trouble, or they have gone the way of the Dodo. The Triumph car company made beautiful cars, but by the early 80s Triumph was associated only with unreliability and re-badged Rovers and Hondas.

Back in 1994, BMW purchased the Rover group, which included Land Rover, Mini, MG, and Triumph, among others. While Rover, Land Rover, and MG ended poorly, Mini has been a gold mine. Auto Express is reporting that the German automaker is now looking into breathing life into the famed Triumph name, and we're all for it. Imagine BMW engineering coupled with Triumph styling; that's one well-heeled couple. An additional marque could add volume to BMW while bringing down the cost of shared parts, and if BMW could manage to keep Triumph styling alive like it did for Mini, the top brass in Munich would be dizzy from cartwheels.

Click the Read link to view more renderings of what a triumphant return of Triumph might look like.

[Source: Auto Express]

We'd picked up rumblings a while back that India's Tata Motors was interested in placing a bid with Ford for its Jaguar and Land Rover properties. Tata's even gone so far as to set its advisors loose on the potential deal to investigate how solid the investment would be. The automaker wants to strengthen itself through expansion into other markets, rather than being tied solely to the whims of the Indian economy. Jaguar and Land Rover are worldwide prestige brands that would give Tata instant entry to many more markets with a built-in customer base. Ratan Tata confirmed his company's desire to bid for the PAG albatross brands during an interview with an Indian news channel. Further exposition by Mr. Tata on the subject was not forthcoming, but the full interview will air Sunday and Monday, and may clear up some more questions. After the jump, we imagine what a letter of intent from Tata to Ford might look like.

[Source: Forbes]

"You took a $95,000 vehicle off-road?" asked a fellow Autoblogger as we shared some of our latest exploits with media vehicles. His question made it sound like I'd done something impressive with the Range Rover Supercharged, but it wasn't much more than gingerly tiptoeing this big British beast into a field. My little romp was equivalent to testing the water in a wading pool, but I discovered that the Range Rover's ride, no hard-tail chopper on the street, is even better off road.

The Range Rover Supercharged is a dichotomy of brilliant and idiotic, swathed in sumptuousness. The luxury might likely be enough to convince you to forget about some of the less pleasurable aspects of the Range Rover. For us, not blessed with the faculties to swing the monthly payment on such a terrible investment as a $100,000 vehicle, all of the luxury, equipment, and capabilities were largely gimcrackery ladled into a vehicle that will essentially pull station wagon duty.