Ford plans to close down one of three UK factories making its luxury Jaguar cars in a cost saving move, the Sunday Times newspaper reported, according to Reuters.
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The Brown’s Lane plant near Coventry in England’s Midlands has been making Jaguar cars for 50 years and is the Jaguar marque’s spiritual home where some 1,500 jobs are threatened by the closure, the newspaper said, according to the news agency.
Reuters said a UK Ford spokesman and a Jaguar spokesman both declined to comment.
A Jaguar spokesman reportedly told the Coventry Evening Telegraph: “[The newspaper report] is speculation and we do not comment on speculation. We are working hard to make all our plants as productive as possible.”
The paper said the Sunday Times report claimed that senior Ford executives have decided that Browns Lane cannot continue in its present form and that several options have been drawn up, from reducing the size of the operations to complete closure.
The Coventry newspaper noted that the same rumour was rife last year and a senior union official insisted on Monday that there was no threat to Browns Lane.
Duncan Simpson, Amicus national officer, reportedly said the firm had assured him there was no truth in the rumour whatsoever.
But, the Coventry Evening Telegraph said, a few weeks ago, Jaguar boss Bob Dover said no decision had been made about future investment in the plant.
Browns Lane, Jaguar’s ‘spiritual home’, builds the new aluminium XJ8 model series and the older steel XK sportscar line using bodies made at Castle Bromwich, also in the Midlands, and engines made at a Ford plant in Wales. The S-type is assembled at Castle Bromwich while the X-type is made at a former Ford plant in Halewood, near Liverpool.
Ford bought Jaguar in 1990. The brand has recently struggled with losses and poorer than expected sales of the entry-level X-type.
