The Chinese owners of MG have faith in the Longbridge plant with the addition of a new £1.2 Million Engine Test Facility.

New state-of-the-art test facilities have been installed at MG Motor UK’s Longbridge site demonstrating commitment to the future and the quality of its products.

£1.2 million has been invested to install a fifth engine test facility and to further enhance the vehicle rolling road on-site at MG HQ in Longbridge. The state-of-the-art engine test facility has significant improvements on the existing test resource and brings with it a major step change for MG Motor’s test and development capability.

Typically, vehicle emission testing on a rolling road has been out-sourced, but now engineers can carry out the required tests in the correct temperature controlled environment with full emission measurement capability. They also benefit from having the technical centre on-site for continuous product development.

Being able to carry out vehicle emissions and engine development on-site allows engineers to ensure the engines going into MG products are at their optimum for emissions, performance and fuel economy. The engineers can run test engines through a complete transient drive cycle with the ability to control temperature and humidity of the intake air and also the temperature of the coolant, oil and fuel.

James Scott, Powertrain Test Senior Manager, said: “The money that’s been invested into this new testing facility shows a real commitment to the future of MG. This additional test cell and enhanced rolling road allows us to continue to get the very best performance and economy for MG products”

“This facility increases the global test and development capability which allows even more collaborative powertrain testing and development with our colleagues in China.”

The new engine test facilities are just one of many new developments for the UK-based design and engineering centre. MG also recently announced an expansion to the design team at Longbridge, following the successful UK launch of the MG GS in June.

Matthew Cheyne, MG’s Head of Sales and Marketing, added: “It’s great to see the company taking even more strides forward – both in sales and engineering developments for the future.

“In July, we again saw our sales figures increase way above the industry average and with these new facilities, it’s clear for everyone to see that MG is continuing to move in the right direction.”