China's Nanjing Automobile Group, which took control of Britain's collapsed MG Rover last year, plans to set up a factory in Ardmore, Okla., to build MG-brand cars, Automotive News and Reuters reported, in what could become the first Chinese attempt to assemble cars in the United States.
Nanjing Automobile is planning three production sites for its reborn MG cars - a shuttered factory in Longbridge, England, a Nanjing plant and the Oklahoma site, Automotive News reported on July 12, citing a news release from the unlisted Chinese auto maker.
Nanjing Automobile in China said it had no statement.
Construction of Nanjing's Oklahoma plant would begin early next year, with production starting by late 2008, the paper said.
About 60 percent of the 12,000 to 16,000 TF coupes to be built annually in Oklahoma is aimed at North America, and the rest for Europe. The Longbridge plant will build the TF roadster and the Nanjing site would assemble three sedans.
MG cars will likely go on sale in the United States in May or June of 2008, Automotive News cited MG as saying. That would mark the first resurrection in the United States of the famed British sports car marquee since 1980.
Nanjing said capital investment in the United States would be more than $2 billion, to be funded by state and local governments in Oklahoma, the state's development agency and private investors, according to Automotive News. It did not specify how the funds would be allocated.
The auto maker would create 550 jobs in Oklahoma, which was hit by the closure in February of a General Motors assembly plant, the paper said.