MG recently celebrated its 100th anniversary, but the oh-so-British brand never would have made it there if it hadn’t been saved and re-invented by Chinese auto supergiant SAIC Motor.
That had us thinking — what other brands desperately need rescuing and reviving?
Imagine if Alfa Romeo, Jaguar or Jeep were re-invented and found themselves more popular than ever? That’s exactly what we did…
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Sure, MG went on to become popular and well known after its humble origins in 1924 when the first cars rolled out of the Morris Garages in Oxford, England, but despite the loyal fan following the new company that exists today sells more cars than the old one ever did. A lot more.
The total number of MGBs made — the most popular car the brand had made pre-SAIC and built in the 18 years from 1962-1980 — was 512,243. In 2024 MG produced 700,000 vehicles — in one year. The most popular new MG globally is the ZS SUV and more than a million have been sold since it first launched in 2017.
In Australia MG was the seventh most-bought car brand in 2024, and it’s now so close to catching up to Hyundai and Mitsubishi that they can feel its breath on their necks.
MG has never experienced success like this.
We can think of a few other brands which could do with the MG magic now…
Jaguar
Jaguar is as British as Buckingham Palace, but like MG it’s not owned by a British company any more. In Jaguar’s case it’s Indian auto company Tata Motors, which has poured a fortune into it and Land Rover since purchasing them in 2008.
Land Rover’s sales have remained fairly stable over the past five years, but Jaguar’s have fallen dramatically with the outlook seeming so concerning the company discontinued all sales of every model except the F-Pace SUV.
The company then appeared to hit the “break glass in case of emergency” button in 2024 with a dramatic image overhaul in an effort to re-invent itself with hyper luxury electric saloons chosen to be the new direction. Whether this works or not is yet to be seen.
Could a Chinese company such as SAIC 'do an MG' with Jaguar? Perhaps what the brand needs is not hyper luxury saloons but small affordable SUVs and electric hatches? And before you laugh, think about what’s better: a Jaguar that doesn’t exist at all or a Jaguar that is worth billions of dollars and building cars lots of people really want?
Why can’t Jaguar be a rival to Volvo, which is owned by China’s Geely and has experienced record sales in the past two years.
Alfa Romeo
This is a tricky one. If Alfa Romeo’s Italian heritage and the design of their vehicles is lost because the company is sold to a Chinese bidder what appeal would be left to buyers? What if SAIC bought Alfa and the cars continued to be designed and built in Italy? Or does that brand need a complete re-boot like MG?
Instinct tells this writer that a reboot could be a better option for a highly profitable survival. Alfa Romeo’s sales have fallen by 20 per cent globally in 2024, which makes it a tempting option.
Stellantis is the giant auto group that owns Alfa Romeo, among others including Jeep and Maserati. Back in 2024 following the fall in sales Stellantis’s then CEO, Carlos Tavares, threatened to sell any brands that failed to perform. Tavares found himself out of a job not long after the threat.
Selling Alfa Romeo would give another company the ability to leverage the history of the brand and profit from it. But in the same way that there’s hardly anything British about an MG ZS there would be hardly anything Italian about an Alfa Romeo small SUV if it were to be sold and built in China.
Do people care about heritage and history when it comes to a car? Some do and I’m one of them, but is nostalgia enough to sustain a car brand?
Maserati
While we’re speaking of Alfa Romeo we may as well mention another elephant in this very crowded room of elephants - Maserati.
Another iconic Italian brand owned by Stellantis, Maserati’s sales fell by 57 per cent in 2024. In Australia the brand sold just 377 cars during 2024, a 40.9 per cent fall on 2023.
When Maserati launched in China in 2017 the brand was so popular that the market accounted for 30 per cent of its global sales. Last year sales fell by 71 per cent. Catastrophe is not a strong enough world to describe the situation.
Ten years ago we were told that SUVs would save Maserati and while that was true for then, the world has changed and the brand is almost back to the crossroads again and in need of another solution for a new problem. Should Stellantis sell Maserati?
Jeep
Jeep is another iconic brand that lives under the roof of Stellantis, but also another that is struggling to stop falling sales.
In Australia 2024 sales were down by 48.7 per cent, which isn’t good, but worse for the brand is its decline in the United States where it has been a successful brand until 2018 when sales began to fall steeply until 2024 when the brand experienced a nine per cent fall year on year.
Would a Chinese company be interested? Well, the Jeep joint venture in China filed for bankruptcy in 2022 and while that might suggest a lack of interest but locally a re-invented Jeep brand bought by BYD or Geely that was fully electric could be an innovative way forward.
Jeep after all had been talking about going fully electric years ago - this could be a way for that to happen quickly.
Tesla
The sale of Tesla to owners such as BYD or Geely makes a lot of sense given that Tesla’s sales are tanking the world over and that an enormous number of the cars are already built in China.
Sales are down 45 per cent in Europe and 11 per cent in the US in January and declined by 72 per cent in Australia in February, while Tesla sales in China fell by 49 per cent for February, also.
BYD accounts for a 34.1 per cent share of the electric vehicle market in China and while Tesla only makes up a six per cent slice there, buying Tesla and knocking out the competition not just at home, but also abroad would make life even easier for BYD.
Tesla’s share price continued to fall steeply at the time of writing (plummeting 15 per cent in the past week) and with the company still yet to bring long-promised models to market such as the Roadster and Model 2, the road ahead is sure to get even bumpier for the flailing brand.
A BYD owned Tesla could freshen up an aging and dated model range with new and less generic styling and more advanced tech, while potentially lowering prices for consumers.
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