MG EX-E - MG's Lost 170mph Supercar 

Sadly you are 100% correct

Its the British way.

So true.

Or the Honda 2.7?

And the build quality of the Marina

To be fair, as the video shows, it was designed around the 6R4 Group B chassis and would have had the Metro’s racing engine in the middle - 4.6 secs 0-60 with the very light body would have been achievable. That same engine went into the production XJ220 to great effect (less than 4 seconds 0-60)

A good point, Triumph would have been a better name for stand alone sports cars with style and performance. TR7 should have been launched with the Sprint engine and a V8 option.

@@davidpeters6536 Sadly, the Sprint engine, technically brilliant with its single OHC 16valve setup, was also unreliable - especially the earlier models but the problems never went away quickly. On the other hand, the Rover (Buick) V8 was a quick road to plenty of power at a low weight (and with a marvellous soundtrack!) Spen King is reputed to have said that not enough V8 engines were available with Range Rover and SD1 consumption but the MG MGB GT V8 went out of production in 1977 and there was still enough production to be able to supply Morgan for the Plus 8. TVR joined the game in 1983...

@@davidpeters6536 what about the TR8 fitted with the Rover 3.5 engine

@@chipmonk12 Too little too late. This is just the point being made. The engine was a perfect fit - especially with the 5-speed box - but officially only ever offered in NAS. Its (too) late arrival - true production only going to market 5 years after the TR7 introduction - was due to shortages of engines, according to CSK.

I thought the same when looking at the rear. It’s good that they used elements of the design as it was very forward thinking.

Some went in the NSX and even in the BMW Nazca

The common link is the designer Gerry McGovern

@@jerrydonnan8665 definitely. He designed some great cars of the 1990's and 2000's

This car came into fruition as the MG F. Somehow, however.

My thoughts exactly. It does look like a C4 Corvette in front.

I know right?

@@paulkirkland1535 Given the EXE appeared five years before the C4's only major facelift did (for model year 1991), it's entirely possible a GM stylist took the MG's wraparound marker/directional light concept and ran with it.

Very much so

It's funny how so many people go on and on about reliability issues with Rovers of the era, yet I have spent my entire working life working with cars and I can't think of any particular issue that plagued this era of cars at the time with the possible exception of the R800 and its electrical issues and the M series engines, but they were never that many of them about. It wasn't until the mid 90s and the head gasket issues with the second gen K series and the first gen KV6 engines that a real problem that was guaranteed to effect the models that used them arose.

Bigger than ever

@@zealandianorth7383 MG only by name in my opinion. Their cars are now built abroad and are nothing like the MG we used to have, producing non sporty, ordinary cars.

A genuinely great EV brand that is almost guaranteed to survive the tumult that will claim many other household-name manufacturers.

Agreed. Nice idea but I doubt people would pay supercar prices for an MG badge, the archetypal cheap and cheerful sports car. Doubt it was even at BMW or Alfa level.

BMW just wanted to rape Rover, MG Rover had started the development of a new medium hatchback that would replace the 25 and 45. BMW took it and turned it into the one series, they wanted the MINI and Range Rover, When they sold what was left of Rover they kept all the " brand names, had clauses in place that they where not allowed to build a small "mini" car (that`s why they tried to get around it by buying the Tata Nano and rebadging it ) or a 4x4 . They also wouldn't let the MG TF have a more powerful engine , it was only when it was sold that they upped the power to 160bhp. BMW never bought Rover to make it a success, like VW did with Skoda .

@@marcushull12 Back when BMW bought MG/Rover I had hope initially MG would work it’s way back to the US. A few fellas had real reservations… they were right. A real mess sadly.

@@marcushull12 exactly correct.. I worked at canley- 5 axis, attached to the design studio in Coventry... Bmw ripped that place apart and took what they needed ( mini .. x5 tech)We were promised a job for life... Look where that got us...

Fascinating video certainly but each time he says Montaygo and Honda Haich PX all I see is that Mitchell & Webb sketch where the Boss snidely asks his staff to repeat their mispronunciations before correcting them then using his suppressed weapon.

The whole concept of the original MGs were they were normal Morris's that have been tuned up a bit, which is exactly what the 'M' cars were.

Of all the cars I've ever owned, and I've owned hundreds over the last 40 years, a 1995 R825 SDi with 365k miles on it and a new 2003 MGZS 180 are without doubt the best cars I've ever owned. I did way more than 100k miles in each and the reliability was astonishing only ever needing service parts. I even had a BMW M3 at the same time as the ZS, but I preferred it to the M3 because it was just so much more fun to drive. Everything I've had since has been as exciting as dishwater, but then just about all cars are now.

Or somebody at Ford really liked the MG EXE........

In the early 1930's, before William Morris sold MG to Morris Cars (in 1935), MG had a high degree of independence under Cecil Kimber's enthusiastic management. In the early '30s, MG was making sports and racing cars at the highest level. Had Morris not determined to kill this, MG WOULD have become one of the very greatest racing and sports car marques of the world. To give an idea of the process - the racing developments of the P type (750cc ohc engine, supercharged and giving around 110bhp) were producing so much power that they could not put it down to the road. MG then produced the R type, with double wishbone suspension all round, on torsion bar springs. With negligable funding, a truly pioneering car was made. Just 10 of them. The engineers had solutiions in mind for its faults, including revised geometry to give camber change with wheel movement (wishbones were equal length) and revised spring rates. Morris was enraged. So, to demonstrate the relevance of this development for road cars, they made a chassis with similar double wishbone suspension to the R type, for a largish luxury car, and put one of their saloon bodies on it. Morris was invited to ride in it. It was astonishingly comfortable to ride in, and handled superbly. He was indifferent to the ride, and so enraged by this excellent world-leading prototype car that he determined to crush the company. He then sold MG to Morris cars, closed the design office at the Abingdom factory, and compelled MG to make warmed-up Wolseley cars. There ended Cecil Kimber's effort to make the world's best sports and racing cars.

To add a little to that story, William Morris also hated Issigonis's design for the post-War Minor. He called it a poached egg, referred to Issigonis as Issy-wassy, and blocked the progress of the design to production for two years. Morris could see no need at all for cars to develop beyond the pre-War Series E.

Jaguar had this slight issue of a global recession and people looking for an excuse to bail out of buying a very expensive car. If the MG had cost Esprit money it may have done ok, provided they weren't planning on selling silly amounts

@@chrisdavidson911 The MG EXE was above the Esprit in design - 3 litre V6, four wheel drive, high tech construction, high tech suspension and other equipment, versus Lotus' 2 litre four, two wheel drive, spine frame and chopped strand glass fibre body, with very good conventional suspension. Not forgetting that the MG 6R4 drive train was the basis for the Jaguar XJ220. Before anyone ridicules the 'high tech suspension', well, Rover had developed a pioneering power hydraulic suspension in the late '60s to early '70s, intended for fitting to the aborted P8. In prototype form it gave excellent ride and astonishing handling. The hydraulic pump to run it consumed a lot of engine power, and would, at least initially, be expensive to produce. William Lyons of Jaguar had a seat on the BL board and got it terminated. He could have adopted it for Jaguar as well, and ADDED to the brilliance of Jaguar. Hey ho, the realities of internecine warfare in BL. The constituent parts of BL killed each other.

@@pashakdescilly7517 don't forget you're comparing a design proposal spec sheet to an actual production car. Do you also think the MG's aerodynamics would have made it in to production? "170mph" and no downforce? Not happening, a Lotus doesn't need a big engine to be fast. By 1985 it was a 2.2L and turbocharged, doing almost 160mph. Road-spec 6R4 had 250bhp, Esprit had 230bhp. "Not forgetting that the MG 6R4 drive train was the basis for the Jaguar XJ220" - not really relevant given that it was 2wd, heavily revised, and essentially dictating that the MG wouldn't have remained 4wd either. "pioneering power hydraulic suspension"? Rover tried to copy Citroen, and added a questionable pendulum based anti-roll system that was no good for mass production, Lotus created active suspension, as in actual active suspension, as used with racing cars. Rover aren't beating Lotus when it comes to being clever, and they hadn't made something suitable for a high performance car. The suspension for the MG didn't exist in the form it was described, unless people think that all hydraulic suspension is "active", which it isn't. Citroen had an anti-roll system on 2cv prototypes in the 1940s, along with the DS and SM a while later. Rover weren't innovating with suspension. There were Esprit prototypes with active suspension, active 4ws, and a composite chassis. 16000nm per degree stiffness. If you're going to regard the MG's spec sheet as being reality, then perhaps consider Lotus putting SID in to production. That also used the 6R4 engine and driveline, so could also be regarded as having XJ220 performance? You think the aluminium spaceframe - which was nothing more than a proposal - would have made it in to production? Don't be silly. Spen kept messing around with it, and it never went anywhere. A Metro was also proposed to be built like that. The show car didn't have it, and it would have been prohibitively expensive for low volume production. There would have been a market for the MG provided they only anticipated low levels of sales and didn't try to charge "Ferrari money" for them, it potentially could have been a good car. The spec sheet for it is nothing more than attention seeking, however.

The rumours are that Honda were very heavily inspired by this design when they came up with the NSX...

British Fiero

I had an MGZS 180 and a M3 at the same time. The MG got used twice as much as the M3 because it was way more fun to drive.

Not if the price tag was above 150k

and it didn't work.

If they'd actually stayed in work long enough to cobble it together in the first place.

Given how simple EVs are, I presume the difficulty is the ever-increasing crash-safety requirements. Not a million miles from the Toyota Sera though, which was mass-produced despite not being a six-figure supercar.

Wow, does he have any photos from him time there? I own an MG Metro

@@davidcollins4699 The car is due to go on display later this year and will appear on at least one motoring TV show !

because FAST money always gets priority in capitalism

I wouldn't say the Metro was a lumpen design it was actually quite nice.

The video said that the Jaguar xj220 got 220 mph out of the same engine, so 170 mph must be posable.

@@davarosmith1334 the XJ220 is a 3.5ltr....with 2 turbos.....and 542bhp! Did it say that it was the 6R4 engine?

Its called power to weight ratio. This car would have been super lightweight. Great on a lovely sunny day with the tyres...absolute death trap in the wet!!!!

Cars are today much heavier

On display at the motor museum in gaydon.

Where’s my ItalDesign Quaranta?! (The EXE has a better back!)

It was 3 years before the K series engine first appeared, and it was 10 years before they fucked up the k series engine and made it suffer head gasket failures. Its a shame because in its original format it was a brilliant engine.