Electric cars fly past iconic Nissan Bluebird
Nissan has now built more LEAF electric cars in Sunderland than the iconic Bluebirds – the first car built at the plant in 1986.
Nissan’s production of the electric LEAF car has now overtaken the Bluebird production at the company’s plant in Sunderland, which was the first car built at the plant in 1986.
A total of 187,178 Bluebirds were built from 1986 to 1990 whenproductiontookover22 hours for each car and now 35 years later, Nissan’s manufacturing technology has reduced the production time to 10 hours for the Nissan LEAF and 195,380 units have been manufactured.
The number of staff employed at the Sunderland plant has grown from 430 in 1986 to 6,000, with 19 staff who started in 19 86 still working today on Nissan LEAF.
In July 1986, the first Nissan Bluebird rolled off the production line at the plant, which employed just 470 members of staff at the time.
Bluebird Job 1, which was the first car, is now a centrepiece in a local museum display commemorating the vehicle.
The Nissan LEAF is also making its mark with the 500,000th LEAF recently produced in Sunderland.
Alan Johnson, Vice President Manufacturing, at Nissan Sunderland, said: “Bluebird was an iconic model for the plant and evokes fond memories among all Nissan
enthusiasts.
“LEAF volumes overtaking Bluebird shows how dramatically our manufacturing innovation, skills and processes have evolved as we drive towards electrification.
“LEAF overtaking Bluebird is a landmark – but there are many more to come for our team at the plant as our electrified line up grows.”
There are now over half a million LEAF cars on the road aroundtheworldandoverthe past decade it has won several awards, including Car of the Year 2011 in Europe, World Car of the Year 2011 and Car of the Year Japan in 2011 and 2012.