South Africa annoyed - UK receiving 100% of MG3 supply.

Imports of MGs being reconsidered

MG CARS are in danger of being lost to South Africa again after Jebb McIntosh, CEO of importer Combined Motor Holdings (CMH), admitted the group was reconsidering its commitment to the brand.

Mr McIntosh said on Wednesday he had become "disillusioned" since 2011, when CMH signed a five-year deal to import MGs. Three years on, CMH still sells only the original launch model, the manual MG6 sedan. Promises to provide other models have come to nothing. A new car due in August was not ready and it was likely to be six months before anything else was available.

MG, once an iconic British sports car brand, is now part of Chinese conglomerate SAIC (formerly Shanghai Automotive Industry). In 2012, CMH began importing a second SAIC brand, the Maxus commercial vehicle range. In total, since 2011, CMH has sold 700 MG and Maxus vehicles. Mr McIntosh declined to give a sales breakdown between the two. CMH is not the first South African company to import MGs in recent years. Pearl Automotive tried its hand for a while until MG’s UK parent company collapsed in 2005, leading to the Chinese takeover. MG’s sister marque, Rover, was also sold and subsequently became Roewe after SAIC failed to buy rights to the brand name.

Mr McIntosh said the vehicle retailer had not yet decided whether to continue importing MGs. Though CMH did not want the association to end, it had become frustrated with the partnership. The company last year dropped Peugeot and Citröen from its national product portfolio because of poor sales.

CMH confirms future of MG in South Africa

•New MG3 launch confirmed for 2nd half of 2014
•Now manufactured in Thailand
•MG sales in UK soar by 574% in 1Q2014
•MG6 wins major international award


Its been a busy few weeks for MG South Africa executives attending important overseas and local discussions confirming an exciting future for MG in South Africa.


MG, locally distributed by Mandarin Motors as part of the massive Combined Motor Holdings (CMH) group of companies, received the green light from Chinese owners SAIC at talks coinciding with the Beijing Auto Show held last month.

This was based on the fact that a new plant in Thailand, where fully-imported MGs for the right-hand drive market (including South Africa, Australia and New Zealand) will be produced, is getting ready to start testing production by the end of this month.


RHD models for the UK market will still be produced at the SAIC plant in Shangai, China, but are exported in SKD form for final assembly in Britain.

Speaking of the UK market – MG sales have increased by nearly 600% in the 1st quarter of 2014, thanks to the launch of the MG3 supermini.

MG sales increased by 574% on the back of the new MG3 – to be launched in South Africa in the beginning of the second half of the year – confirming MG as the fastest growing manufacturer in the UK.

“The major reason for the repeated delays of the launch of MG3 in South Africa was because of an agreement between the Chinese giant – the owners of the iconic British brand – and MG in the UK, sending all models off the production line to the UK first, and then on to other markets,” explains MG South Africa General Manager Derrick Bishop.

“We would have launched the MG3 towards the end of last year, but because of supply issues and the UK getting first choice, we simply didn’t receive stock.”

MG3 sales in the UK sky-rocketed to give MG the biggest growth in March as well as the first quarter of the new year.

The Beijing Auto Show awarded an opportunity for Mandarin Motors executives to tackle the issue one on one with senior SAIC officials, and talks led to the assurance that South Africa will be supplied with some of the first models out of the new Thailand plant.

“We are looking at finally launching the MG3 super mini at the start of the second half of this year,” says Bishop.

The new MG3 series for the South African market will have three models – the flagship MG3 Style, the mid-range MG3 Wired and the entry level MG3. Pricing will be announced closer to launch.

All models are powered by a sporty DOHC VTi-TECH petrol engine with a 5-speed manual gearbox and have the same great MG chassis designed to make driving the MG3 a bit more fun than any average car in this segment. The 1,5ℓ engine delivers 78kW at 6 000 rpm and 137Nm of torque at 4 750 rpm, making it an easily driveable car. Acceleration from 0 – 100 km/h is expected to be around 10 seconds, reaching a top speed in excess of 175 km/h.

Interestingly the latest MGs are attracting buyers who have never owned MGs before.


• MG South Africa has also confirmed a new government tender for the MG6, which was signed off this week.

Currently available at all MG Dealers across South Africa, the popular MG6 – which was voted the best handling car in Auto Express Magazine’s 2014 Driver Power customer satisfaction survey – will soon also be available from major car rental companies.

“We are ready for the MG3. We have 15 MG dealerships in all the major centres all over South Africa, with a further 10 planned to open this year,” says Bishop.

In recent months new MG dealerships have opened in Polokwane and Mokopane.

They join the ranks of existing MG dealers in Gauteng (East and West Rand), the Free State (Bloemfontein), Western Cape (Cape Town), KwaZulu-Natal (Umhlanga and Durban), Eastern Cape (East London and Port Elizabeth), Northern Cape (Kimberley), North West (Klerksdorp) and Mpumalanga (Nelspruit).

patpending wrote:When will the last RHD cars leave China, when will the first leave Thailand, I wonder?
a) actually (for South Africa)
b) for the UK

What will initial Thai quality be like? Will there be a dependency here for "64" registrations linked to the cutover?

Windy wrote:I don't think Thai cars will be coming to the UK, the Thai factory is an assembly factory like Longbridge, not a kit producer like Lingang.