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I hope I'm horribly wrong, but I think it's only a matter of time before we see another British factory calling an abrupt halt to vehicle production. Ford has already proved the point that it's possible to stop building cars in Dagenham, and indeed the rest of the UK, without the expected backlash. It should have come from the Government, unions and customers, but they're seemingly content to stand by and see the US giant transform itself from a leading UK car maker to a mere importer. There's a very big difference between those two activities, but nobody, apart from those who've lost their jobs, seems to care.

By MIke Rutherford

19th October 2004

Have sales suffered since Uncle Henry decided there'll be no such thing as a Brit-built Ford car? Not really. Vauxhall took over the number one slot in August, but the blue oval clawed it back again and will, at year's end, maintain its regular position as top dog. And that could be all the encouragement GM/Vauxhall, Britain's traditional number two, needs before it abandons or further curtails its UK activities.
The former chairman of Vauxhall, Nick Reilly, is the new Daewoo/Chevrolet boss and apparently sees more of a future for himself at GM's operations in Chongchon 2 Dong, Inchon, South Korea, than Luton, England.

True, Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, limps on, but does the General in Detroit need it? Yes, yes, yes would be my emphatic answer, but I'm a biased Brit keen to see as many UK car production lines as possible. GM is the world's largest corporation, and the hard-nosed guys who run it have barely heard of Ellesmere Port, nor acquired an emotional attachment to it.

I'm not trying to talk up the frightening prospects of GM doing a Ford and withdrawing all its UK facilities. But I am being realistic in predicting that's exactly what could happen. How come? Because GM is on the brink of stripping out one in five jobs in Europe. That's 12,000 people. Although most of them will go in Opel in Germany, more need to be dumped from elsewhere, and if I was an employee at one of the comparatively tiny, globally irrelevant factories with a Saab or Vauxhall sign over the door, I'd be very, very twitchy.

Look at it from where the Yanks are standing; Europe is that small piece of land sitting somewhere between America and their new friends in Russia. Ellesmere Port and Trollhattan, Saab's heart in Scandinavia, probably aren't even perceived as being European locations. Logistically, they're a headache. They're relatively tiny and out of the way. They have no economies of scale. They're not building anything that can't be built elsewhere, possibly for less money. All things considered, they're probably more trouble than they're worth.

The Vauxhall brand can survive in the UK, just as Ford's does, without a single car being built here. Country of origin doesn't seem to bother many buyers. And in the case of MG Rover, 'Made in Britain' almost seems to have negative connotations. These firms' bosses are businessmen. And there's nothing to prevent them from diversifying into the property industry, by bulldozing factories for homes. It'll certainly be more lucrative than churning out cars which make them little profit, and often bring them nothing but heavy financial losses.

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