MG Rover to Buy Qvale Subsidiary

The maker of the famed MG sports car said it will acquire the Italian car-building unit of San Francisco-based Qvale Automotive Group and use it to launch a new MG model that could restore the brand to the U.S.

The new MG, code-named the X80, will be built at the former Qvale Mangusta plant in Modena, Italy, and will provide “an opportunity to look at markets where we are not currently represented--in particular the U.S. market, the world’s largest sports car market,” said Kevin Howe, MG Rover’s chief executive.

Terms of the purchase from Qvale were not disclosed.

Qvale had built the 2001 Mangusta sports car at Modena but is ending production after about 200 vehicles as part of the deal, President Bruce Qvale said. The Mangusta platform and other components will be used in the new MG, he said.

Qvale Group imports and sells European luxury cars through U.S. dealerships and was the first West Coast MG dealership in 1947.

MG Rover is Britain’s last remaining independent production car maker. Its losses are so steep that Germany’s BMW, which acquired it through its 1994 purchase of the Rover Group, sold it for a token $14 last year to a private consortium.