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Comment by nickserv | Hacker News Reader

Yeah they sold off pretty much their entire motor industry to the Germans (Mini, Bentley, ..), Chinese (Lotus) and Indians (Jaguar, Land Rover).

Typical case of short sighted capitalism.

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I don't know, Stephen King couldn't write anything that matches the horror that was the management of UK car companies in the second half of the 20th century. British Leyland was a disaster from start to finish.

British cars in the 70s and 80s were shockingly bad. The Austin Metro and Allegro spring to mind.

What's funny is the new owners of MG make a pretty nice car (reliable and good looking): https://www.mgcyberster.co.uk

Besides that flagship vehicle, their other more standard cars are also pretty good. We just returned from Hong Kong, and the cars there were the same brands we saw in South America: Maxus et al. with some MGs. To be honest, they seemed very good. Unless something is secretly wrong with them regarding safety or reliability, the American and European car industries are in huge trouble.

A friend's dad just restored his ancient MG up here in California and it was funny to me to see that car and then go up to Hong Kong and see the modern incarnation of the same marque.

Regarding the MGs, I believe the design is still done in the UK, which explains the style. And from my understanding a lot of of the really good looking Chinese cars are actually designed by European design shops (Italian, Swedish etc). It seems like a pretty good strategy actually to let the Chinese handle the manufacturing while the Europeans handle the design and performance.

That is a good looking car.

I knew someone who owned one of the original MGs. They used to drive around with a boot (trunk) full of tools, for when it inevitably broke down.

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