MG is becoming a global value-oriented brand in its second century

The rebirth of the MG brand has been happening mostly out of sight of the North American auto industry.

That might not be the case much longer.

I'd bet that MG's corporate owner, SAIC Motor, China's largest automaker and biggest exporter of vehicles, is using the experience it is gaining from rebuilding the brand and launching it in South America, Europe and Southeast Asia, as a dry run for a return someday to the U.S.

MG, in just two years, has passed Ford Motor Co. and Hyundai in Mexico and now is the eighth-best selling brand there, so it is already in North America.

Vehicles sold in that market are not built to meet U.S. federal safety and emissions regulations, so for SAIC, it is not a simple matter of just appointing dealers here and shipping cars.

And right now, even with a new sports car on the way, a return to the U.S. is not in the plan, an SAIC spokeswoman in China told me via email. But with each new country MG enters – and finds success – SAIC's confidence in its products and strategies must be growing.

To be sure, SAIC still has a lot of work to do before it is ready to return to the U.S. In the U.K., the MG brand ranked 18th last year in customer satisfaction, according to one study. To overcome any lingering perceptions of poor quality leftover from the last MGs that were sold here in the early '80s and to combat any negative stereotypes of shoddy Chinese vehicles, SAIC really has to not only make reliable and durable cars, but also ensure that parts and service are immediately available – no easy task for a country as large as the United States.

But the opportunity is there. With Hyundai and Kia moving upmarket, the door is wide open for a new value-oriented brand of vehicles priced well below the competition to enter the U.S. I think MG will be that brand.

And SAIC can do it. China has EV battery raw materials and production leadership by a wide margin, and SAIC has logistics operations with its own ocean freighters that already ship cars all over the world. Those advantages might be enough to overcome any tariffs and still sell profitably.

What SAIC doesn't have is experience selling vehicles in a market that has precious little patience for bad quality, poor parts availability and inadequate service. That's us, the U.S. I'd also bet SAIC is going to school and studying all the companies that failed here so it won't repeat the same mistakes made by Daewoo, Daihatsu, Suzuki, Isuzu, Sterling, Peugeot and others.

SAIC is also a supplier and provides logistics services to the American auto industry, with a U.S. headquarters in Birmingham, Mich., just north of Detroit. I've been there several times. It's a strange situation. No one answers the door. Or the phone. Emails are not returned. FedEx and UPS delivery notices are stuck to the front door. I can never recall an SAIC executive or engineer taking part in any industry conference, tech presentation or other event. That kind of invisibility is not going to work here. The company will have to engage with the larger automotive community and with customers if it wants to be successful here.

SAIC, whose joint venture partners include General Motors and Volkswagen, is in my estimation just one or two generations of vehicles, say about five to eight years away, from being ready to come to America.

Those with long memories will recall that Toyota, Nissan, Honda and later, Hyundai and Kia, gained traction in the U.S. by selling decent looking and reliable vehicles at prices lower than the competition. I'd also bet SAIC is studying how these brands became successful here.

Forget about MG's British past and the classic sports cars it made in its first 100 years. That chapter is over. It's time to start thinking about MG in a new light: as the next Hyundai, with a lineup of crossovers and economy cars, with hybrid and electric powertrains and with contemporary styling. With MG's global sales last year of more than 660,000 vehicles and rising fast, and the brand in the top 10 in sales in 20 countries, MG's second century is going to be radically different from its first.