Ford’s (soon to be Tata’s) Halewood plant on Merseyside near Liverpool has built the 100,000th Land Rover Freelander 2 17 months after production shifted to Halewood from Solihull near Birmingham with the model generation change over.
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Job # 100,000, a Rimini Red 2.2 diesel automatic model, is now heading to a customer in the city of Surgut, located on Russia’s central Siberian plateau. Sales of Land Rover vehicles are booming in Russia, Ford said, – over 12,000 units were sold there last year, an increase of 95% over 2006.
Russian-specification Freelanders have special fuel fire heaters fitted which heat the diesel fuel up to prime the engine during winter months.
Halewood operations director Thomas Klein said: “The 100,000th [unit] is an important milestone for the plant – Freelander 2 helped Land Rover achieve its best ever sales year in 2007 and has won several major awards in its first 12 months in the market place.
“[It] is continuing to perform well in traditional Land Rover markets such as the UK but sales in emerging areas like Russia and China are also growing rapidly so it’s entirely fitting that this car is destined for a customer in Siberia.”
Russia is now Land Rover’s third largest market, after the UK and USA.
