By 2005, about 4,000 workers at what is now the Rover plant at Longbridge, Birmingham, half the current number, will be producing profitably 40,000 or more MG sports cars and sports saloons a year.
At least, that is the ambitious vision of Mr Jon Moulton, the patriotic venture capitalist and head of Alchemy Partners, who yesterday took charge of BMW's "English Patient".
Mr Moulton's new MGs will incorporate similar aluminium chassis and composite plastic bodywork to that developed by the Norfolk-based sports carmaker, Lotus.
The vehicles produced by the MG Car Company, the name chosen by Alchemy for the new venture, will have been designed and developed independently, at a projected cost measured in tens of millions of pounds, not the £1.7 billion sterling (€2.75 billion) that BMW had been planning to inject into Longbridge for new models and manufacturing facilities. They will also make little call on traditional steel-bashing skills and assembly lines processes. By then, only a dwindling number of Rover 75 models will still be on sale, a pale reminder of BMW's now aborted plans to turn Rover into a big part of its global car business.
It is a vision that most industry analysts regard as highly ambitious and risk-laden. And one that Mr Moulton insists is wholly achievable.
The vision also marks the final break-up of what was once the giant state-owned British Leyland, and the death of Longbridge as the heart of the British motor industry.
Mr Moulton, who oversaw the purchase of Fatty Arbuckles, the restaurant group, and the Fads DIY stores, acknowledged yesterday the limits of Alchemy's new MG company.
It would be far beyond its resources to invest in a conventional new model programme to be built in high volumes, using steel bodies, such as the 25 and 45 models still produced at Longbridge, or the 75 made at Rover Oxford. Alchemy has six weeks in which to draw up a detailed strategy. But it is likely that half of the Longbridge work force employed on building 25 and 45 models will face redundancy.
The effects of adverse publicity on Rover cars as saleable commodities will become clearer over that period. But Alchemy is believed to be braced for a halving of demand for Longbridge's Rover models. That would mean cutting output of Rover 25 and 45 models to fewer than 80,000 a year. Alchemy also has the rights to sell the "old" Mini now on production run-out at Longbridge, and which BMW will replace with a new Mini built at the Oxford plant, which it is retaining, early next year.
There are enough "old" Minis to meet demand in the Rover distribution system, which Alchemy also inherits .Under the deal, BMW has agreed to build Rover 75s at Oxford for Alchemy for up to two years.
