Riley Sports Cars reborn?
PistonHeads breaks a story today that William Riley has the full intention of reviving the Riley brand, which has been dormant since 1969.
According to a recent story in the Blackpool gazette, the Riley Sports Cars project headed by William Riley is about to sign a deal to secure a manufacturing base in the town.
Mr Riley – part of the famous Riley automotive family and head of Worcestershire-based Cranhills International Consultants - is seeking to buy 8 acres of land at Bispham Technology Park with the intention of building a new factory.
"The papers for buying the land will be signed later this week” said Riley. "We hope to rent some buildings close to the site where, until the factory is ready, we will be starting production on some of the cars. We will also be taking on some staff over the next few weeks. It's a very exciting time and I'm very hopeful things will be sorted by this time next week."
The plan sees sports car building returning to Blackpool, but these won’t be TVRs, but rather MGs. Riley plans to return the much-troubled MG X-Power SV coupe to production and there’s also talk of
a second model described as a ‘premium’ MG X-Power roadster and coupe.
The MG Sports and Racing brand remains with receivers PriceWaterhouseCoopers despite MG itself being bought by the Nanjing Corporation of China. Mr Riley says discussions with PriceWaterhouseCoopers are "well advanced".
According to previous reports, Riley aims to produce 1,800 cars by 2010 and employ up to 100 ex-TVR staff. More than 250 TVR workers lost their jobs with the collapse of the company last
year. The firm plans to revive the Riley family name for the cars, but there’s no word yet on how they will actually be made. Previous reports indicated that part of the production might take place in the USA. The SV coupe under MG Sport and Racing had a difficult manufacturing process, with carbon fibre bodies manufactured in the Isle of Wight before being mated with the chassis in Modena, Italy. Engines from the USA and final construction then took place back in the UK at Longbridge.
Alan Cavill, head of corporate policy and development at Blackpool Council, said: "This will be great news for Blackpool. We are looking forward to this jobs boost and this will be a great opportunity for people who were let down by the collapse of TVR. We look forward to working more with Mr Riley's company - anything that will help Blackpool can only be welcomed."
Riley hopes to make an official statement within the next few days.
