A 70-year history of the Castle Bromwich assembly plant

Sep 25 2009 by John Cranage, Birmingham Post

By the end of the war, Castle Bromwich had developed world-beating expertise in building metal-skinned aircraft, an asset that was to be tapped by sheet metal manufacturer Fisher and Ludlow which turned the plant over to manufacturing car body panels.

It has been a centre of car production ever since, under the ownership first of British Leyland then Jaguar.

In its time, it has produced Mini sub-frames and bodies for Rovers and Jaguars and painted Triumph TR7 sports car bodies.

BL had planned to shut Castle Bromwich in 1980 but then pulled off one of the biggest U-turns in industrial history by pumping in some £100 million to modernise its facilities.

Under Jaguar’s ownership, the plant was regarded as being under-utilised but by 1989 it was being used to assemble the Jaguar S Type, the predecessor to today’s highly successful XF. In 2005 Jaguar’s then owner, Ford, announced that car building was to end at Browns Lane in Coventry after 50 years and production consolidated at Castle Bromwich.

A massive redevelopment of the Birmingham site was needed to accommodate the XJ and XK lines. The project saw 2,500 workers from 120 contractors working round the clock and saw the removal of more than 9,000 cubic yards of soil – the size of a Channel ferry – being dug out and removed.

Amazingly, the first cars came off the new tracks only six weeks after Browns Lane built its last car.

In 2005, the then Jaguar managing director, Bibiana Boeria, said of Castle Bromwich: “It is crucial to the success of a revitalised Jaguar business.”

Four years on, the automotive industry is going through a crippling recession. And with three assembly plants now an expensive luxury for JLR, it looks as if Castle Bromwich will join Longbridge as a proud but defunct part of Birmingham’s manufacturing tradition.