Post by Kasey Kagawa

In 2003, MG Rover debuted the Rover Streetwise, basically a Rover 25 on stilts with a set of big, ugly black plastic bumpers that seem to be inspired by the Pontiac Aztek. They marketed it as an “urban on-roader,” which is a market segment that one would hope all cars would aspire to be in, as there isn’t much of a market for cars whose wheels fall off and suspension disintegrates the instant you take it onto a road or into town. It didn’t sell, and was relegated to being another footnote in the slow meltdown of the MG Rover Group.

In between now and then, MG Rover has been bought by Nanjing Automotive in China, and MG was split from Rover due to Ford stealing the Rover name from Nanjing through an option established with BMW. They’ve reopened the old Rover plant at Longbridge and are making the MG TF, with plans for plants in China and Oklahoma and production of the MG ZT.

And apparently, the Rover Streetwise. Rebadged as an MG, it looks largely the same as it did when it was launched. Now, this might fly in the People’s Republic, since as far as I can see, Chinese automotive technology is stuck in the late 1990’s, which would make this four-year-old car something that stepped out of a time machine. The same thing is true in the rest of the world, but only in the opposite direction. The Streetwise was out of date when it was introduced, and it’s still out of date today. If this is the game that Nanjing’s bringing to the table, they’re in for a big disappointment.

MG Streetwise scooped [Car Magazine]