Your Mother Probably Would Like It

Back in the mid-1970s, MG ran an advert for the MGB which carried the slogan Your Mother Wouldn’t Like It. There was a blonde smoking a cheroot in front of an MGB roadster. It must have been a very cold evening on the night of the shoot, judging by the state of her nipular areas. Poor soul. Whether your mother would have been more alarmed at the prospect of a brash, smokey thing wheezing up to the front door with you or the young woman is not a thing about which I’m prepared to speculate.

In the 35-odd years since that ad ran a lot has happened to MG. It died for a start then it was reborn. It died again then was dragged off to China and resuscitated one more time. MG has had a more active afterlife than a bad guy in Buffy. The Chinese owners have announced that UK assembly will start once again at the much-reduced Longbridge plant. They’ve been carrying out a limited programme of assembly of revised MG TFs there on and off for a while. That programme has now come to an end. It seems that they have finally taken the TF out along the A38 somewhere and buried it at a crossroads with a stake through its heart.

The MG6 is a different beast. It’s based on a heavily revised Rover 75 platform. It has a 158bhp turbocharged four cylinder engine related to the old Rover K-series one. It doesn’t look dreadful and Autocar says it drives very nicely. It has lots of toys, won’t be too expensive but its success in the UK might be limited by perceptions of a Chinese MG and its lack of a diesel engine. However, I can’t imagine your mother even noticing it, never mind disapproving of it. Maybe they could recycle the old Safety Fast slogan for it instead.