UK car production on the up

According to the SMMT, UK vehicle production was up 2.1% at the end of September on a year-to-date basis, at 1.29 million.

This means full year production is likely to be not far off the highs achieved in the early Seventies and then again in the first few years of this decade. Thats a remarkable achievement considering that the last few years have seen the closure of Peugeot's plant at Ryton, Vauxhall's Luton works, and the final car assembly end of Ford's Dagenham operation - not to mention the demise of MG Rover.

It is a little remarked upon fact that Britain has lost almost an entire car industry in the last twenty or so years but gained almost an entire new one as well. The old 'Big Four' volume manufacturers - Leyland, Ford, Chrysler/Rootes and Vauxhall, have with the exception of Vauxhall largely disappeared in terms of UK production. What we have in their place are new Japanese plants run by Honda, Toyota and Nissan, as well as revived, previously niche-bound but now massively expanded prestige operations such as Bentley, Aston, Rolls, Land Rover and MINI - only Jaguar isn't really living up to its potential, and even that may change once the new XF hits the market.

One by-product of this shift is that not only is the industry almost as big as it's ever been, but the average value of the cars being made is probably a lot higher. Notwithstanding the possible rationalisation of Land Rover's and Jaguar's production facilities after Ford has sold these off, I think we will now hold on to most of what is left of the British industry.

Blast from the past 3 - Austin Gipsy

An interesting one. Ended up very briefly at Goodwood last Saturday with Verdict tester Lee Dalton and the Corsa VXR, where we saw this. Although it looks a bit like an early Land Rover, this is in fact an Austin Gipsy.


The Gipsy was built from the late fifties to the late sixties. What did for it was the coming together of Austin and Rover under the same roof after the formation of British Leyland; the Land Rover was probably always going to come out on top when the post-merger model range was streamlined. The Gipsy was available in short and long wheelbase variants; at 90 inches and 110 inches these were very similar to the two Land Rover wheelbase options. A big difference between the Gipsy and the Land Rover was that the Gipsy had steel bodywork to the Land Rover's aluminium.

Solihull Celebration

A brief visit to the Land Rover HQ at Solihull this morning. The occasion was the handing over of the four millionth Land Rover, a Discovery, to the Born Free Foundation in the person of Joanna Lumley.



Haven't got much to say about that really but the four million milestone did get me thinking. It took almost thirty years - from 1948 to 1976 - for Land Rover to build its first million vehicles. In the roughly comparable period since, the company has built another three million. And yet, back in 1976, with Land Rover mired in the wider mess of British Leyland, and little being spent on new models, it seemed very unlikely that the company would keep going for another three decades, let alone triple its production. Just goes to show that it's not all doom and gloom in the British motor industry.