BRITAIN’s favourite cut-price sports car is about to make a comeback. The MG Midget, loved by generations of motoring aficionados on a budget, is to be revived under plans to restart MG production in the West Midlands.

A new Midget forms part of the plans of the GB Sports Car company, which was chosen last week by Nanjing Automobile Corporation as its UK partner.

Nanjing bought the assets of MG Rover, the defunct West Midlands carmaker, from the administrator Price Waterhouse Coopers last month for £50m. GB Sports Car, which was one of the unsuccessful bidders, will work with Nanjing on a business plan to produce MG cars at Longbridge, the historic Birmingham plant.

GB Sports Cars had planned to produce only the current MG TF sports car, but Nanjing’s plans, drawn up with advice from the consultancy group Arup, envisaged a range of five MG models within five years.

A GB spokesman said the two companies were in talks to put business plans together, and GB would study Nanjing’s plans to make bigger MG models based on the Rover 75 saloon.

It also envisaged producing a small sports model, a Midget, probably based on the existing MG TF. “We see this as a very interesting part of the market, and one that is important in MG heritage. Midgets were always based on small mass-production cars and we would like to do one within a few years,” the spokesman said.

GB is recruiting a team of engineers and senior executives and an agreement with Nanjing could be signed within weeks. GB declined to reveal its backers, believed to include American and British financiers.

GB is said to be seeking working capital of about £70m to restart production of the TF, and is in talks with Strada, the engineering company that makes the car’s body.

Nanjing could still face a legal challenge to its plans from Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, a rival Chinese group that claims exclusive rights to certain MG Rover designs, including the 25 and 75 models, and Rover engines.

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