Rover heads for Le Mans with 200 mph MG

LONDON -- Rover is speeding up its recovery drive with a 200 mph sports model specially designed for the Le Mans 24-hour race.

The Le Mans MG will take the historic marque to the famous track in northern France next year for the first time since 1965.

That year British racing supremo Paddy Hopkirk's MGB took second place in his class with an average 98.2 miles per hour.

"It demonstrates how serious we are in developing the MG brand which has been undeveloped previously," said Nick Stephenson, deputy chairman of Rover Group.

The Le Mans MG will be developed by racing specialists Lola Cars International Ltd.

A production MG sports car -- the MGF roadster -- is part of the company's plans for its single Longbridge plant, fleshed out Friday.

From the end of September this year, the 9,000 workers at the plant outside Birmingham will produce Rover 25, 45 and 75 models plus the MGF.

The new management of Britain's Rover Group, paid by Germany's BMW in May to take the loss-making business off its hands, also trumpeted a recovery in sales and a drive for new markets in South Africa, Australia, Norway and Sweden.

Rover was bought for a nominal £10 by consortium Phoenix, which also secured a £500 million repayable credit from BMW to spend on restructuring and began life debt-free.

The new management said UK sales growth in the first seven months of 2000 was 8.3 percent in a market that grew only one percent.

Sales to retail customers (sales excluding company fleets) grew 27 percent, and other European countries' sales grew by between 20 and 78 percent.

Much of this growth is accounted for by a "fire sale" discount period in April, when previous owners BMW offered huge discounts to clear a stock backlog resulting from long-running uncertainty over the future of the business.

"But sales to retail customers are up every month since May since it was bought by the Phoenix consortium," said a Rover spokesman.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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