LONGBRIDGE stalwart Lisa Ponter created a slice of motoring history – when she drove the factory’s first new MG sports car for 16 years off the assembly line.

She was at the wheel to unveil Longbridge’s first customer MG6.

Lisa, from Wordsley, near Stourbridge, who helps fit exhausts and brakes, said the production relaunch had been an emotional moment.

“I have been back here for four years but I worked at Longbridge for 17 years before that,” she said. “I started in the sewing room in January 1987.”

“It’s brilliant to be back here, although it was bittersweet because of what happened.

“I go all the way back to the days of British Aerospace and BMW.”

The relaunch of volume production was hailed as a “real milestone for Longbridge and for the automotive industry in the West Midlands” by Northfield Labour MP Richard Burden.

“Longbridge has been through dark days,” he said.

“Nobody around here will forget how it felt, six years ago this week, when MG Rover closed its doors for the last time and more than 6,000 people lost their jobs.

“The greatest tribute we can pay the heritage that made the name Longbridge synonymous with motor manufacturing throughout the 20th century is to build a future in the 21st century. Today is about that future. We are a world leader in performance engineering.”