citação:Project Kimber, the industry group which has bought the rights to manufacture the recently discontinued Smart Roadster, has announced that it is to restart production of this model in Wales.
The specific site has not yet been named, but Kimber is to transfer the necessary equipment and tooling from Smart's Hambach factory in time to commence production in mid-2007. It plans to make over 8,000 roadsters in the first year.
The Project Kimber team has been supported by the Welsh Assembly and is to receive government aid. The decision to build in Wales has been welcomed by industry bodies as a positive story for British manufacturing.
It's a smaller-scale outcome than Kimber's original ambitious plans to buy the whole of MG Rover and relaunch a comprehensive range of MGs, but already the prospect of a reborn Smart Roadster (by no means an outdated product when it was prematurely axed) looks to have more potential than Nanjing Automotive's to-be-relaunched MG TF, assembled at Longbridge from kits pre-fabricated in China.
There's no word yet on what brand name the reborn Roadster will be sold under, however. The Kimber team - named after the founder of the MG brand, Cecil Kimber of Morris Garages - had hoped to secure a partnership with Nanjing Automotive and sell the car as a new-age MG Midget, but it now appears that it is going it alone. The Healey and Austin-Healey brand-names are also spoken-for, which rules out the option of calling the car a Sprite, though buying the licence to use the Triumph name is said to be a possibility.
The specific site has not yet been named, but Kimber is to transfer the necessary equipment and tooling from Smart's Hambach factory in time to commence production in mid-2007. It plans to make over 8,000 roadsters in the first year.
The Project Kimber team has been supported by the Welsh Assembly and is to receive government aid. The decision to build in Wales has been welcomed by industry bodies as a positive story for British manufacturing.
It's a smaller-scale outcome than Kimber's original ambitious plans to buy the whole of MG Rover and relaunch a comprehensive range of MGs, but already the prospect of a reborn Smart Roadster (by no means an outdated product when it was prematurely axed) looks to have more potential than Nanjing Automotive's to-be-relaunched MG TF, assembled at Longbridge from kits pre-fabricated in China.
There's no word yet on what brand name the reborn Roadster will be sold under, however. The Kimber team - named after the founder of the MG brand, Cecil Kimber of Morris Garages - had hoped to secure a partnership with Nanjing Automotive and sell the car as a new-age MG Midget, but it now appears that it is going it alone. The Healey and Austin-Healey brand-names are also spoken-for, which rules out the option of calling the car a Sprite, though buying the licence to use the Triumph name is said to be a possibility.
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