SHANGHAI - Nanjing Auto Corp., the oldest carmaker in China unveiled unveiled its first made-in-China MG sports cars and sedans Tuesday, the first step in a plan to use the iconic British brand as a platform for global expansion.

Officials and guests gather around one of the first MG cars to roll out from Nanjing Auto's new multi-million dollar plant, at a ceremony in eastern China's Nanjing city. China's oldest carmaker breathed new life into Britain's MG with the first Chinese-made models of the historic brand rolling off the new plant. [AFP]

China's oldest automaker introduced the 1.8 liter MGTF roadster and the MG 7295 and 7275 sedans at its 3.5 billion yuan ($450 million) plant near eastern Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province.

The brand, renamed "Ming Jue" or "Modern Gentleman", will go on sale in China in the second half of the year, with a price between 180,000 yuan and 400,000 yuan ($23,255 to $51,710). 

The MG series were unveiled by Nanjing Auto to coincide with its 60th anniversary and mark another significant event in China's drive towards becoming a global auto power.

"After a year of fighting hard, we now posses our own international brand in the new MG series that is now being driven off the production line," Nanjing Auto chairman Wang Haoliang said in a company statement.

Nanjing Auto, which began producting cars in 1947, bought the MG brand and other assets for US$97 million in July 2005, after the collapse of the UK automaker MG Rover Group Ltd.

Nanjing Auto plans to start making MG TF Coupes in Ardmore, Oklahoma in May or June 2008, it said in July.

"Japanese automakers took 30 years" to begin overseas sales, while "Korean automakers took 20 years," Wang said at Tuesday's ceremony. "We are much faster."

The automaker aims to sell as much as 60 percent of its MG cars overseas, president Yu Jianwei told reporters today without providing a timeframe. The company is in talks with strategic overseas investors, he added, without elaboration.

Nanjing is aiming to roll out 200,000 MGs from its China plant annually for both the domestic market and exports.

Total investment in the Nanjing-base project will be 2.82 billion yuan (US$360 million dollars), the company said previously.

Nanjing will also produce another 250,000 engines and 100,000 gearboxes annually, with investment rising to 3.5 billion yuan over the next five years.

The revamped MG series will compete directly with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp (SAIC), which unveiled in October last year its "Roewe 750", a line based on the Rover 75 model saloon.

Shanghai Auto bought the rights to MG Rover Group's 75 and Rover 25 in 2005 after it lost out to Nanjing in the bid for all of the bankrupt British carmaker's models and engines.

The two firms are so far the only Chinese car companies to produce their own lines in China after buying a Western brand and technology.

Although most of MG Rover's machinery and equipment in the British group's now defunct factories were shipped to China, Nanjing Auto also has plans to build 15,000 cars at Britain's Longbridge factory for the European market.

"Nanjing and Longbridge will be the two bases for MG," said Yu Jianwei, president of Nanjing MG Auto.

"The research work will be mainly done in Britain, supported by the manufacture of high value-added products, while China will be the centre of global manufacturing, opening up both domestic and international markets."

Last year Nanjing, which also has a joint venture with Italy's Fiat, announced it would build the MG brand in Oklahoma from May 2008, which would make it the first Chinese automaker to build cars in the United States.

Its ambitious plans have however been overshadowed by its chairman's recent request for financial help, sparking concerns that the company is fiscally overstretched.

Wang submitted a proposal this month to the China's annual parliamentary session seeking official help in acquiring up to three billion yuan in loans, according to an earlier report by the Shanghai Security News.