What is it?
This is the Nanjing MG7, one of two new Chinese-produced versions of the cars previously known as the MG ZT and Rover 75. The other is the Roewe 750.
The MG7 is built in China using a production line shipped over from Longbridge in the UK. It's been updated for the Chinese market, too, and fitted with revised versions of the K-series engine (now Euro4 emissions-compliant, apparently more durable and called N-series).
What's it like?
Reassuringly British. This is the same supple suspension, and these the same cossetting bucket seats we tried for the first time on the roads of Britain back in the middle of 1998. The car’s manufacturing centre might have moved 8000 miles east and the people building it might be different in almost every way from the Cowley lineworkers who started it off, but this car is still close to the good old Rover 75/MG ZT in look, feel, image and quality.
NAC MG engineers have improved the MGZT without changing it much. The car has better-looking rear LED tail lights and new-style alloy wheels. The audio and heating/air conditioning systems are both updated, and there’s a better sunroof assembly. As a result of a Lotus Engineering development programme, the engine range (now comprising a 1.8 160bhp petrol turbo and a 190bhp 2.5-litre petrol V6) can meet Euro4 emissions standards. It also gets a five-layer head gasket aimed at correcting the old K-series engine’s best-known head-sealing fault. For now there’s no diesel for the MG7.
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