Sydney show: MG XPower SV-R stunner

THE British car-maker attracted a big slice of attention with its loud XPower SV-R "Batmobile" coupe, which first appeared at the 2001 Birmingham motor show and will go on sale here around April 2004.

Based on the Mangusta produced by Qvale, which was bought by MG Rover, XPower appeared in pre-production form and features a composite body, revised chassis and double wishbone suspension at all four corners.

Powered by a 5.0-litre Winston V8 with 283kW and 522Nm of torque (not the 242kW engine of the SV, which won’t be sold here), the sub-1500kg, 282km/h SV-R will be priced around $250,000.

MG Rover Australia already holds deposits for eight SV-Rs (two in New Zealand), which will be built to order in numbers of 300 per year. A nitrous oxide-kitted SV-R is also currently undergoing evaluation for sale here.

Also around April 2004, MG Rover Australia will add two V8-powered rear-drive variants to its Rover 75-based MG ZT sedan and ZT-T wagon range. Aimed directly at local and European performance offerings, the ZT 260 V8 was recently launched in the UK and features a two-valve 4.6-litre V8 offering 194kW.

Available initially in manual guise for around $89,500, the ZT V8 is expected to find between 70 and 100 customers annually.

By around July, the ZT V8 range will be expanded by the supercharged ZT 385 V8, to be built by separate company XPower and available here for around $115,000.

MG Rover Australia hopes to double sales to around 3000 in 2005, when a new mid-sized successor for the Rover 45 appears, with three, four, five-door and wagon bodystyles to be offered under both the Rover and MG nameplates.