NEW JAGUAR WILL BE FIRST NOT BUILT IN BRITAIN

JAGUAR will build a global model exclusively outside of the UK for the first time, the car maker will announce tomorrow.

The Jaguar ‘baby’ E-Pace will be unveiled tomorrow. It is a mid-sized sports utility vehicle costing from £28,500 and will be manufactured at factories in China and Austria.

Britain’s biggest car maker already builds vehicles abroad at plants in China, Brazil and India, but no model is solely produced abroad.

It is constructing a £1bn plant at Nitra in Slovakia, its first European factory outside the UK, to build 150,000 vehicles a year. The wraps will come off the E-Pace tomorrow. Bosses are expected to stress that the move to build the model only abroad is a positive sign of the expanding UK firm’s success at conquering global markets.

They will insist the decision gets around the issue of its existing UK factories ‘bursting at the seams’. It also means the UK car firm can avoid paying punitive import duties on the car which bosses expect to be a massive seller – and potentially the biggestselling Jaguar.

JLR declined to comment on its plans ahead of tomorrow’s official announcement on the E-Pace.