MG Building Chinese Cars in England
It's a far cry from Cecil Kimber assembling MG sports cars from bits and pieces left over from Morris-Wolseley Group sedans, but the MG badge is alive again in England - under Chinese ownership.
The story is complex - after Morris absorbed Wolseley and several other manufacturers into the British Motor Corporation, BMC was itself absorbed into British Leyland, which was ultimately taken over by the British government and then collapsed. 
After a series of other owners, various trademarks and other assets were purchased by Chinese companies, while the right to produce Morris's greatest success, the Mini Cooper, went to BMW.
In China, the rights to the MG badge first went to the Nanjing Automobile Company, which was then purchased by the Shanghai-based SAIC Motor Corporation. For a while, it looked like the Chinese might start building new MGs in Oklahoma on tribal reservation land, but that plan ultimately fizzled. Now they're shipping kits back to England from China, and performing final assembly on the new MG TF LE500 roadster in Longbridge, England.
The specs on the MG TF sound like fun -it's a mid-engine, rear drive, two seat sports car with a 1.8-liter engine and a 5 speed manual transmission. The engine makes 133 horsepower and 122 pound-feet of torque and gets about 35 MPG.
The downside is that MG/SAIC wants about $32,800 for one, and they're available only in England.
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the MG is not front engined it is mid engined!
Indeed the history is a complex one riddled with politics, bad management, bad influences within the workforce, and ultimately a lack of forward planning and investment in mainstream products people wanted that would support the company and provide future growth. MG always being a small subordinate part of a larger organisation that meant the company control was in the hands of others who often had little MG sympathy.
Occasionally there were bright spots with various MG models and the MGF, and the TF that was developed from it, is one such example of an MG that was greater in total than the sum of its parts, and typical of many MGs in being developed on a shoestring.
The MGF and TF are not without faults, but offers many of the the true elements of MG ownership, headed by economical fun. Having owned several examples, the current one averaging well over 40 mpg (note imperial gallon), there remains a fair degree of life in the design. Indeed with plenty of experience of the latest TF LE500 which is made up of 60% Chinese and 40% EU parts, I can actuaklly say that these LE500 models are the best quality TFs to date.
BTW the configuration is mid engined with the engine and transmission sitting behind the cockpit and driving the rear wheels.
Rog
Sorry about the flub - fixed now. The TF was listed as front-engined on at least one UK spec site and well, we don't have one in the local press pool to see for ourselves...