Directors of Phoenix Venture Holdings, the MG Rover parent company, are helping company troubleshooter David James with his bid to restart car production at Longbridge.

Mr James, who rescued the Millennium Dome from financial collapse, has emerged as favourite to take over assets of the crashed carmaker and resume production, but on a much smaller scale than before.

About 6,000 jobs were lost when MG Rover collapsed in March with debts of #1.4 billion.

Mr James was reported last week to be working with a group of unnamed Midland businessmen on an offer to administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The Birmingham Post has learnt that Phoenix Venture Holdings (PVH) chairman John Towers and co-directors John Edwards and Peter Beal are working with Mr James behind the scenes.

The only member of the socalled Phoenix Four, who have been accused of enriching themselves at the expense of MG Rover since buying the business from BMW in 2000 for just #10, not taking part is Nick Stephenson.

He is said to be backing a rival rescue plan by Nanjing Automobile Corporation (NAC) which has been named a preferred bidder by PwC.

NAC?s plan envisages Rover cars being built in China rather than at Longbridge.

A source close to the James bid said yesterday that none of the PVH directors had a financial interest in the plan nor would they be involved in operations should it be successful. PVH itself did not go into administration along with the group?s manufacturing and car dealership operations and Mr Towers and his colleagues have continue to work from offices at Longbridge.

They are understood to be concentrating on running PVH?s remaining property assets which, it is planned, will ultimately be sold and the proceeds donated to a trust fund for needy former Long-bridge employees.

Mr James spent the weekend in talks with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), which holds the intellectual property rights to the cars, about a potential #60 million joint bid.

One newspaper claimed yesterday that Mr James has reached a deal to use Long-bridge to make MG sports cars and Rover 75 and 25 cars.

The plan could create 2,000 jobs - 500 for sports car production and 1,500 for Rover cars. He was reported as saying: ?I am confident that by Monday, I?ll have a deal.?

SAIC previously had planned to move Rover production to China and had indicated it was only interested in buying Rover?s engine subsidiary Powertrain.

However, if Mr James and SAIC manage to agree their deal with PwC it is thought SAIC would be more flexible about maintaining production at Longbridge.

Meanwhile yesterday, Tony Woodley, head of the Transport and General Workers Union, claimed that senior officials of SAIC will travel to Britain this week for talks with former Ford of Europe boss Martin Leach is who behind another scheme to build cars at Longbridge.

He admitted the discussions could lead to ?next to nothing? but added: ?Or, incredible as it sounds, we could see a wider vision, supported by SAIC.

?We could end up with a mini miracle for jobs.?