MG XPower SV - History

History

After acquiring Qvale Automotive Srl of Italy, MG Rover allocated the project code X80 and set up a subsidiary company, MG X80 Ltd., to produce a new model based on the Qvale Mangusta. One attraction was the potential sales in the United States, as the Mangusta had already been homologated for the American market.

The MG X80 was originally revealed as a concept car in 2001. However, the styling was considered too sedate. When the production model, now renamed MG XPower SV, was eventually launched the following year, designer Peter Stevens had made the car's styling more aggressive. The conversion from a clay model to a production car, including all requirements, was done in just 300 days by the Swedish company Caran. One goal was to get a street price of under £100,000. The car's baseline model eventually cost £65,000 with the uprated XPower SV-R model costing £83,000.

The production process was complex, partly caused by the use of carbon fibre to make the body panels. The basic body parts were made in the UK by SP Systems and then shipped to Belco Avia near Turin for assembly into body panels. These were then assembled into a complete body shell and fitted onto the box frame chassis and running gear and shipped to the MG Rover Longbridge factory to be trimmed and finished. Several of the cars' exterior and interior parts were borrowed from current and past Fiat models. The headlights, for example, were taken from a Punto Mk.2 and the rear lights borrowed from a Fiat Coupe.

According the data at the MG XPower SV Club, approximately 82 cars were produced excluding the 4 'XP' pre-production prototypes. This included a few pre-production and show cars which were later dismantled, before production was stopped due to lack of sales. Most were sold to private owners, with the final ones being sold to customers in early 2008.