Founded by William R. Morris in 1924 as a side project to make sportier versions of his Morris company’s mainstream cars. It was so successful that MG was sold to the main Morris company in 1935.
As with Morris, MG went through many hands after this, including a merger with Austin to form British Motor Corporation, becoming part of British Leyland then Rover, British Aerospace and BMW.
When BMW exited in 2000, MG and Rover became independent and British owned once more as part of the Phoenix Group. After Phoenix’s collapse in 2005, MG was sold to China’s Nanjing Auto Group. Nanjing merged with the larger SAIC in 2008.
Most manufacturing for the brand now occurs in China, although some limited manufacturing capacity has been maintained at Longbridge, UK.
