JLR Investment in U.K. Plant Supports New Jaguar XF

Jaguar Land Rover announces a £600 million ($890 million) spending program in the U.K.’s West Midlands region to support product creation and advanced vehicle manufacturing.

Most of the money will be spent at the automaker’s Castle Bromwich plant, where more than £400 million ($593.2 million) is earmarked for new and upgraded facilities to support the introduction of the all-new Jaguar XF.

JLR CEO Ralf Speth says the spending at Castle Bromwich includes a £320 million ($474.5 million) state-of-the art aluminum body shop which completes the site’s transformation into a global center of excellence for lightweight vehicle manufacturing.

“This is the largest single investment in the history of the Castle Bromwich site and highlights a remarkable turnaround in the fortunes of the company’s West Midlands manufacturing operations which were earmarked for consolidation during the height of the global economic downturn,” Speth says in a statement.

Castle Bromwich is home to the Jaguar XF, Jaguar XJ and Jaguar F-Type and the plant employs 3,500 people who last year built 81,570 units. The introduction of the all-new XF completes an all-aluminum lineup at the plant.

Spending includes £16 million ($23.7 million) on a new blanker line that allows the plant to turn coils of aluminum into blank sheets that will be pressed into body panels and parts on a £50 million ($74.1 million) press line under construction.

This line will feed in to the new body shop, the most flexible and versatile of its kind throughout JLR, capable of switching between Jaguar’s entire range of models mid-production.

Another £30 million ($44.5 million) has been spent to significantly upgrade the trim and final-assembly hall.

JLR also announces it will double the operational footprint of its Advanced Design and Engineering Center in Whitley, Coventry. The center will house product-development engineers and will support the automaker’s creation of high-technology, ultra-low-emissions vehicles.