Reasons for optimism in the British Car Industry

[JagLover]

Most of us seem full of doom and gloom about this subject given the recent demise of Rover so I thought a few figures might cheer people up.

Car manufacturers in the UK produced 2.83 million cars in 2004.

2.57 Million new cars were sold here-meaning that the UK actually has a net export surplus in cars.

In fact 1.18 Million of the cars produced were exported, and these were often high value cars, such as Jaguars.

Most of these cars were not produced by British owned manufacturers-but who cares- I would rather have Jaguar (owned by Ford) and Mini (owned by BMW) than Rover (owned by 4 asset strippers.)


>>> Edited by JagLover on Wednesday 13th April 16:13

[sadako]

Isnt the rights to most of rovers designs owned by other countries? Someone said to me the other day the rights to the K-series engine was owned by a chinese firm

[pdV6]

JagLover said:

Car manufacturers in the UK produced 2.83 million cars in 2004. 2.57 Million new cars were sold here-meaning that the UK actually has a net export surplus in cars. In fact 1.18 Million of the cars produced were exported, and these were often high value cars, such as Jaguars.

Care to explain that bit of maths?

[JagLover]

pdV6 said:

JagLover said: Car manufacturers in the UK produced 2.83 million cars in 2004. 2.57 Million new cars were sold here-meaning that the UK actually has a net export surplus in cars. In fact 1.18 Million of the cars produced were exported, and these were often high value cars, such as Jaguars. Care to explain that bit of maths?

Of the 2.57M cars sold here 1.65m were made here

1.65 plus 1.18 exported equals 2.83