Just under 300 workers have transferred recently from building Land Rover and Range Rover models at Solihull to the Jaguar plant at Castle Bromwich on the other side of Birmingham, in central England.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
“It’s nothing new, 284 employees have moved to help with production of the XF model,” a Land Rover spokeswoman told just-auto on Friday. The move was reported this morning by local television news.
She stressed all the moves were voluntary, adding that such flexibility had been agreed with workers in the last pay negotiations, about a year ago.
“Production has slowed [at Solihull], due to everything that’s going on at the moment, and the XF is in demand so we’re just meeting business needs, really.”
Jaguar launched the cutting-edge XF, replacing the retro-look S-type, early this year. Innovations include a start-stop button that elevates a unique centre console-mounted, cylinder-shaped gear selector into position and powers the dashboard a/c vents open on start up.
The new car has been critically acclaimed in all markets in which it has been introduced so far; it was recently launched in Australia. The 2.7-litre V6 turbodiesel is the most economical and the version most popular with UK buyers.
Months after the XF first went on sale here, India’s Tata Motors bought Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford.
Graeme Roberts
