Tata Motors, the home-grown automaker, recently added a new milestone in its history with Jaguar Land Rover's Solihull Manufacturing Plant beginning the production of the all-new Jaguar XE at the facility. This finally marks the addition of the Jaguar brand to the plant and the official opening of its state-of-the-art 500 million pounds 'factory within a factory'.
In its 70 years, the Solihull factory has been home to the Land Rover brand and is famous for the production some of the most iconic cars in automotive history. The Jaguar brand's arrival to Solihull is the latest amongst the significant developments for the site - its production has almost trebled and the workforce has doubled in just 5 years.
About the 500 million pounds 'factory within a factory' - it is the largest single investment in the Solihull plant in its 70 year history and comprises a new body shop, and trim and final facilities. Furthermore, 55 UK based suppliers have been awarded £4bn in contracts to support the introduction of the all-new Jaguar model.
Alan Volkaerts, Solihull Operations Director, said, "This really is an incredibly special day for Jaguar Land Rover and the team here at Solihull, many of whom have witnessed the plant change beyond all recognition in recent time. The arrival of the new Jaguar XE marks a new chapter in the history of this plant and showcases the flexibility of our manufacturing operation thanks to a strategic investment in aluminium technologies and infrastructure."
The beginning of XE's production at the Solihull plant will be followed by that of the Jaguar performance crossover, the F-PACE. Together, the two cars could raise the facility's annual output by 50 per cent to 360,000.
