Made in Britain
The UK’S car factories visited
This isn’t rocket science, but our high-speed tour of Britain’s car factories still owes something to the line with which John F Kennedy committed the US to the space race: “We do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” That’s doubly true when it comes to getting to Sunderland in time for 9am if your starting point, like ours, is Twickenham in southwest London.
The idea is simple: to visit every significant car manufacturing site to try to put some numbers and a sense of scale on what remains Blighty’s most dynamic industrial sector. Readers with longer memories might remember that we’ve done something similar before, with a 2005 expedition serving as the partial inspiration for this one, but it has also been made topical by Brexit and the serious number of unanswered questions about what it will mean for our car industry. Whereas the original tour was a marathon, including taking a car from each factory to the next (see ‘All change since 2005’, below), this one is definitely a sprint, given the need to compress a tour of the 16 UK sites that produce more than 100 road-legal cars a year into just three days.
DAY ONE
For transport on this high-mileage mission, we’ve opted to go straight to the top. The Bentley Bentayga Diesel has been selected on the basis of its Britishness and general niceness as a place to spend time, but also by the fuel range given by its huge, 85-litre tank. There’s steady rain throughout our four-hour trip from Autocar HQ to Wearside, but the gauge still reads half full as we arrive.
Sunderland is a long way from the heart of the British car industry, but the Nissan plant is one of the most productive in Europe. Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) might produce more vehicles overall, but no other British plant got close to the half million Nissan Qashqais, Jukes and Infiniti Q30s that Sunderland built last year, along with a smattering of Leafs. A total of 7000 people work here and its importance to the local economy is emphasised by the fact that the entire workforce is being given the freedom of the city two days after our visit, although nobody we speak to seems quite sure what this will entitle them to do. There’s just one problem, though. Our plan is to photograph the whole production line-up outside each factory, but there’s an absence of available cars here, with only a box-fresh Qashqai waiting to go. “You wouldn’t
believe how hard it is to get cars in a car factory,” says plant PR Stuart Boyd, ruefully.
With just three hours to get to Liverpool, we can’t wait around, so snapper Stan Papior and I are soon heading south again in the warm and slightly wooden embrace of what we soon start to think of as the Bentayga timewarp. Radar cruise control is set to a respectable pace and the Bentley’s vastness and shiny frontal aspect do an excellent job of clearing slower-moving traffic from our path on the A1(M). At least, it does on the few parts that aren’t 50mphlimited roadworks. We’re sharing the road with a steady stream of car transporters hauling Sunderland’s wares southwards. Crossing the Pennines on the M62, we start to see an equal number of lorries carrying JLR vehicles in the other direction.
Halewood has been transformed since our 2005 visit. Back then, we weren’t allowed inside, after recent cutbacks in the face of sliding sales of the unloved Jaguar X-type. But the arrival of the Freelander and then the Range Rover Evoque transformed the plant’s fortunes, with workforce and production volumes having tripled in the past 12 years. The trim and final workshop is a hive of activity as a finished car rolls off the line every 90sec. The sound of blaring horns is soon mixed with some choice Scouse invective as our attempts to manoeuvre cars for a photo threatens a tailback. Stopping the line would be unforgivable. Apparently, the leader of Knowsley council started out working here, as did Mclaren Automotive boss Mike Flewitt.
The drive to Ellesmere Port, on the other side of the Mersey, is a brief hop. Vauxhall production here has increased since 2005 but the workforce has pretty much halved. There isn’t time to go inside, but I do get the chance to move the factoryfresh Astra that we’ve borrowed for photographs. It has just 13 miles on the odometer when we finish with it. The two-millionth Astra built here
was finished a couple of weeks before our visit. Let’s hope that tally gets to carry on climbing.
The Bentayga has the scent of home in its nostrils as we turn for Crewe, although the crosscountry route soon emphasises how overcrowded the UK’S road network has become. We reach Pym’s Lane half an hour behind schedule, with ‘our’ Bentley taken away for a spruceup so it can be photographed with its sisters. There have been huge changes here in the past 12 years, with a new engineering centre across from the main factory. Bentley boss Wolfgang Dürheimer and various other board members hurry across the road as we’re taking pictures, rushing between meetings. For once, our Bentayga doesn’t stand out as a steady stream of its sisters come past on their pre-delivery road test.
Leaving Crewe makes me realise what the diesel-powered Bentayga reminds me of: the old turbocharged Arnage. The triple-boosted diesel might be several generations of technology advanced from that venerable 6.75-litre pushrod V8, but it shares the same basement-up torque and sense of a huge iron fist inside a velvet glove. It’s more refined too. If there’s a better diesel engine in the world, I’ve yet to experience it.
Not that the mighty motor can do anything about Crewe’s terrible traffic. As a result, we’re nearly an hour late getting to Toyota’s factory at Burnaston, where a small team have stayed late with the cars. The Avensis we snap has pretty much rolled straight off the line and into our shot.
DAY TWO
The next day starts bright and early outside the Jaguar plant at Castle Bromwich. JLR has closed one of the main gates into the factory so we can line up the complete range, with the XE, XF, XF Sportbrake, XJ, XJ Long Wheelbase and F-type all needing to be positioned. What the factory can’t run to is a step ladder – working at height, directives come into play – so
A security guard suspects we’re trying to steal one of the factory’s products
Papior takes the photo while perched on the Bentayga, to the amusement of the workers helping us position cars.
There’s a running theme here too. Crewe started out making Merlin engines during World War II and many of them came here to be fitted to the Spitfires the factory built. After the war, the site was taken over by Pressed Steel, which made panels for most of the other Midlands plants, with Jaguar taking control in 1977.
Castle Bromwich feels busy, although Solihull is something else. Nissan might win on volume, but the vast Land Rover plant at Lode Lane is definitely the most impressive plant that we visit in terms of its vast size and huge amount of activity. Business is booming, with £2 billion recently invested in increasing capacity. The final inspection area has representative examples of everything made here, arranged for us in appropriate shades of red, white and blue.
Our departure causes some confusion because we leave via a different gate from the one we entered and a short-sighted security guard suspects that we’re trying to steal one of the factory’s products without the proper authority. He waves us to a stop before realising the Bentley isn’t a blinged-up Range Rover. “Don’t worry,” he shouts in a broad Brummie twang to his mate controlling the barrier. “It’s just some kind of new Jaguar.” Ouch.
Aston Martin’s Gaydon plant is another whistle-stop and I park the Bentayga in the personal parking space of CEO Andy Palmer, risking a diplomatic incident. Aston Martin’s recent return to profitability and the launch of the DB11 have given the company a new sense of confidence, and if we do this exercise again, we’ll have to leave England to take in the new St Athan plant in Wales. Interest is already running high, with an Australian tour group – including a bloke who has been collecting Autocar since 1948 – leaving as we take our group shot. (The Vanquish S that we use for our pictures may