JAGUAR’S car plant in Coventry is expected to close with the loss of more than 2,000 jobs.
Ford, which owns Jaguar, is due to meet unions at the Browns Lane factory on Friday when it will blame the luxury brand’s mounting financial losses for the closure.
A few weeks ago, Jaguar put all three of its British car plants on short-time working in a drive to cut production by 11 per cent — or 15,000 vehicles — by the end of the year.
Ford is now briefing politicians on its plans and is expected to emphasise that Jaguar is loss-making and not utilising its capacity.
Ford’s Premier Automotive Group, which includes Land Rover, Volvo and Aston Martin, lost $362 million (£200 million) in the second quarter and it is thought that Jaguar contributed about $250 million of those losses.
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Sales have slumped in the US, Jaguar’s second-biggest market, and the marque has failed to achieve the volume that Ford had forecast for it.
The carmaker had intended Jaguar to make more than 300,000 cars a year, with the X-type driving volume. But the model, which is made at Halewood on Merseyside, has disappointed and Jaguar is only producing about 118,000 vehicles a year.
Browns Lane makes Jaguar’s most expensive car — the XJ saloon which costs more than £60,000 — and its niche sports car the XK. It is also the headquarters of the British marque. But Browns Lane does not have facilities to press or paint car body panels. It has to bring in ready-made sections from another Jaguar plant at nearby Castle Bromwich. This has made the factory vulnerable, according to experts.
Ford appeared to offer firm assurances this year when it said that the factory would get the replacement model for the sports car in 2006. The expected closure is in contrast to the recent rescue of Land Rover’s Solihull plant. Ford had said that it would switch production from Solihull unless working practices changed.
The Browns Lane closure will incense unions which believed that Ford had made firm commitments to keep the factory open. Dave Osborne, T&G national secretary for the car industry, said that unions would oppose closure.
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The last car factory closure, announced three years ago by Vauxhall, was at Luton. The decision followed upheaval the previous year when the break-up of Rover coincided with the end of carmaking in Ford’s plant at Dagenham, East London.