SHANGHAI: I confess to having felt an electric shock when I first read that the famous old British brand, MG, had risen from the dead to be born again here in the Far East. "China gets its first convertible sports car," the article said.

My first car was a two-seater MG convertible in the early '50s, much beloved. For no matter how many loves you have later in life, you never forget your first car.

It is hard to imagine today, when most cars strive so hard to look alike, how a diminutive, sharp-angled MG, with its running boards and its headlights separate from the graceful fenders, looked among the bloated behemoths of those days - a chickadee among puddle ducks.

It was the first affordable sports car to hit the American shores after the war, and its following became fanatical. Oh, yes, the top leaked when you put it up in the rain. There were no door windows, so you dug around behind the seats to find your side curtains.

You had to make sure you varied your speeds so the oil kept circulating. It was made for the hedgerow lanes of England, after all, not American highways. And the electrical system was made by Lucas, known as the Prince of Darkness. You could find yourself at any time, anyplace, coming to a complete standstill. But, my, was it "yar," as Katharine Hepburn would have said.

The literature spoke of "motoring," not just driving, and with the top down on a May day, you knew just what was meant.

I didn't consider what my age group was going through here in China back then. We only learned later of the soil-to-the-tillers, the hundred flowers, or the great leap forward campaigns Chairman Mao was inflicting on his benighted countrymen.

We didn't know it, but we were about to go to war with China on the Korean peninsula the year my car was new. In those days, China's cities were awash with bicycles. Anyone caught driving an MG would have been denounced as a "capitalist roader" and sent down to the countryside to haul night soil.

MG began as "Morris Garage" in Oxford. Nanjing Automobile bought MG from bankruptcy in 2005, and I understand it means to have the letters stand for "Modern Gentleman." Considering the turmoil China has been through, it is wonderful to think of today's youth driving up to the 1930s Paramount Ballroom on the Yuyuan Road in a Modern Gentleman.

Britain has become the ultimate post-industrial country in that it has given up its car industry to foreigners completely, except for a few, tiny specialized brands. Germany's BMW bought MG and Rover, but the Rover division soon became known in Munich as "The English Patient." So BMW was happy to get rid of it.

The Chinese plan to make some MGs for the European market in Britain, however, and perhaps in the future they may open up factories in the United States, as the Japanese have.

China's car industry is akin to Japan's in the '60s. Back then Japanese cars were cheap and practical, but maybe a little tinny. Today, Japan makes the most reliable cars you can buy, and Toyota is challenging General Motors as the biggest, most successful car company in the world. Who can doubt that within a few years, however, Toyota will be looking in its rearview mirror as China's cars take over in America, just the way Japanese cars once did?

I read that, at this stage, China feels more comfortable buying troubled companies with established brands rather than pushing their own. The Nanjing Automobile company's Wang Hongbiao was quoted as saying: "We want to protect the British flavor of the [MG] brand."

Oddly, the Chinese are one of the few people in the world who love Buicks. They are more popular in China than in the United States. There is a new Buick on the drawing board that has been partially designed by Chinese. Some say the Buick reminds them of the old days, of the '40s before Mao, when Buicks were a symbol of riches and the good life.

Doesn't it stand to reason, then, that if China seeks sick companies with established brands, the next step will be to buy General Motors and Ford? Maybe India will buy Chrysler. Is there a Great Wall Explorer or a Dodge Darjeeling in your future?

H. D. S. Greenway's column appears regularly in The Boston Globe.