Ron...
While I agree that you have some strong points, I would rest my case on
two numbers to illustrate how important the Chinese believe it is for
the new MG to be seen as British: 6,600 and 200.
There were 6,000 employees when the Longbridge factory was shut down a
year and a half ago.
Only 200 people will be employed by the reconstituted MG marque at
Longbridge. Nanjing Automobile Corporations managing director, Yu
Jianwei, has already announced that it would only assemble 15,00 of the
new cars at Longbridge from kits supplied by his factory in Shanghai,
using equipment dismantled and shipped from Longbridge. The same would
hold true for those cars assembled in Nanjing's proposed factory
somewhere in Oklahoma where 12,000 cars will be put back together from
kits. Nanjing's big market will be in China itself where it will
produce 200,000 cars and MG will stand not for "Morris Garages", but for
"Modern Gentlemen"
Clearly, even the Chinese recognized the need in the West to have an
English front for its car, and that it not be perceived as a Chinese
product. And you are right,but it is perception that matters."
When the Nanjing Automobile Corporation "bought" MG, they simply bought
the intellectual property rights and equipment. They then had to sign a
33-year lease for two car assembly plants, a paint shop and
administrative offices
You are again quite correct in that the target buyers will be those who
already drift to the rice cans.
Buster
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Ron Soave wrote:
>We finally disagree. The average age or target buyer for the car won't be the
60-somethings that a lot of us LBC owners are. It will be the 20 somethings
who have grown up their entire lives with Wal Mart and cell phones. Does the
name LG mean anything to you? Probably not. Ask a 20 year old and they'll
tell you they make the best cell phones. Ask a 30 year old, they make the
best refrigerators and appliances (they don't, but it is perception that
matters). They are used to crap being the norm. Our generation (ill)conceived
the global economy and exploited it, the next generation has embraced it. I
have a great friend who is a lean enterprise manufacturing genius (we make all
our stuff in Illinois because we figured out how to be competitive doing it,
but Buster you know by now we do a lot of weird shit that goes against the
grain). He was recently in China and could not believe the difference in the
last 5 years there. Remember when made in Japan meant it was complete crap?
He says the next reckoning (great David Halberstam book title, about the auto
industry, BTW)is coming. And a faux LBC may lead it.
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