09 June 2014

GM Ellesmere Port, UK 50 Years

Canal boats passed through this port many years ago and it now houses the National Waterways Museum with the largest collection of canal boats in the world. I have a connection to the town of Ellesmere Port I won't bore you with here, but it caught my eye when I found out that the GM car plant located there is 50 years old. I wrote about the plant back in 2005, found by clicking here.


The plant is now fifty years old and celebrated as they do with the original Viva model and the current Astra. It was built on a disused WWII airfield to supply other UK factories with subassemblies and engines. However, the Viva HA model started to be made there in 1964. 

By 1975 all Chevettes were manufactured at Ellesmere Port and in 1980 the first Opel badged cars were produced - to go to Germany. In 1981 the Astra model was introduced. In 2005, EP passed the 4,000,000 mark for cars produced.

In recent times GM has been trying to refine its European operations to make them profitable and that meant fewer factories. Ellesmere Port was a possible casualty but it has been given the green light for the 2015 Astra to be made there along with the Gliwice plant in Poland. They will be the only factories making that model.

I have put together a series of lists below, in ten year increments of EP production numbers. Ones that are estimates are rounded. As to why manufacturers do not put this sort of thing out in the public domain I do not know. Anyway, it is very close to exact but has various sources and is not absolute in accuracy. It could depend whether the source included the van variant of the car, or just counted passenger cars.




64-73

74-83

84-93


64 7,776
74 94,618
84 34,403


65 39,312
75 90,191
85 50,592


66 62,848
76 101,000
86 74,082


67 132,240
77 93,237
87 89,539


68 151,612
78 84,041
88 89,425


69 110,882
79 58,765
89 87,266


70 115,561
80 55,002
90 105,024


71 122,958
81 44,204
91 90,233


72 127,201
82 51,379
92 117,511


73 93,417
83 49,250
93 111,047


Av 96381
Av 72169
Av 84912



94-03

04-13





94 102,527
04 125,981





95 108,152
05 189,196




96 112,424
06 143,654





97 102,020
07 115,476





98 98,197
08 102,481





99 154,741
09 76,771





00 154,121
10 102,665





01 132,297
11 137,971





02 48,332
12 90,187





03 30,286
13 73,502





Av 104310
Av 115788














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