MG opens two new Sydney dealerships

MG is on the cusp of moving from niche-brand standing to volume-selling status with the importer's announcement it is now selling cars in Sydney.

The new dealerships have opened at Lansvale and Chullora, taking the dealer network to 18.

Back in July during a media event in Shanghai (China), Danny Lenartic, Senior Manager for Marketing and Communications for MG in Australia, told motoring.com.au that expansion into Sydney would be the missing piece in the national distribution puzzle.

"We're about to announce a new Sydney dealership," Lenartic revealed at the time. "That's probably our last city or state to get a true national distribution.

"We're not in Tasmania or Northern Territory. However we're in regional and metro Queensland, regional and metro Victoria – and now regional and metro New South Wales.

"We've got a flagship, stand-alone dealership in Perth with John Hughes.

"Our dealer network, if you look at the names that have accepted the brand, they're all heavy hitters; they're all respected in their own right.

"We've built those 16 dealerships over the last six to eight months.

"We've been busy.

"The great thing, though, is they're selling cars."

The relaunch of the MG brand in Australia has been troubled, however. In the period since MG last sold cars here, the brand and its parent, Rover, had been sold by BMW to the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (now just SAIC Motor).

An attempt to revive the brand here with the MG6 small car ended ignominiously when hundreds of cars were imported, without Australian Design Rule (ADR) compliance. The factory subsequently stepped in and took over responsibility from the private distributor.

Lenartic said that period is now ancient history, and the cars were sold legally after modification to make them compliant with the local design rules.

"They weren't ADR-compliant; it wasn't a huge issue though... they've actually since been fixed by us. We put three years' manufacturer's warranty on them, and they've all been retailed now...

"They were sold as used cars, but we just thought – as a manufacturer – that we needed to put the warranty on there...

"We knew that they were good cars... but we just wanted to give the consumer a bit of confidence, and then obviously give our dealers confidence as well.

"Thankfully, that is behind us now.

"Any business has its challenges, and this was just one we had to deal with.

"What it did start to do was establish the fact that we were committing to the business, committing to Australia, and establishing a beachhead. Some people saw it as a good thing, because they saw that actually we were going to fix it – and start to move on from there."

The company is now heavily advertising its range on TV and is seeing some dividends from that.

"It's a solid state of play, I would say," Lenartic told motoring last month. "VFACTS data indicates solid numbers this month, solid numbers last month. Growing the network nationally."

For the year to date, MG has sold 1252 cars and SUVs. That's not a huge number, but better than 372 for the same period last year. With the new dealers opening and new product in the pipeline, MG is in sight of a 3000-unit sales tally by the end of this year. That would likely place it ahead of established brands such as Citroen and Fiat, and it will have achieved that milestone in half the time it took Skoda, which launched in Australia during the 12 months immediately prior to the Global Financial Crisis.