On Saturday London hosted what was the lastest is a series of rallies for MG and Rover enthusiasts, gathering to show their support for the workers at the Longbridge plant in the British Midlands, who are facing imminent unemployment.

This will likely be their last chance for such a show of support for the estimated 25,000 workers who will be affected by recent events at Longbridge.

Steve Childs, from the MG and Rover website said, “the demise of MG Rover is a national issue…There is just over 100 years of history of car manufacturing at Longbridge and we do not want our indigenous car manufacturing industry to follow the same path as our ship building, coal mining and pottery industries. If this trend continues, the ‘Made in Britain’ badge will become a collectors item soon, as you won’t see them on any products.”

MG Rover was sold by BMW to Phoenix Venture Holdings in 2000. It’s market share continued to decline however, and when negotiations with SAIC collapsed they were forced to file for bankruptcy.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 25th, 2005 at 10:14 am and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.