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

Italy Top Four Brands : 1980-89

The Lancia Prisma

Sales history of cars can be patchy. It can also vary if different sources are used to put a timeline of sales together. The sales I found changed dramatically form 1989 to 1990, as you will see when that is released in due course. It is put together with due diligence and the highest accuracy possible. Bearing that in mind....

The 1980's in Italy had a more settled feel to it. Renault was second for years, but then replaced by a resurgent Lancia thanks I believe to the Y10 model. Alfa Romeo fell away suffering financial problems and was bought by Fiat in 1986. It was then merged with Lancia.

The percentage of the top four on the extreme right column of the chart below remained relatively steady considering its fall in the previous two decades. The sales figures are in thousands.

Yr	1st	Sales	%	2nd	Sales	%	3rd	Sales	%	4th	Sales	%	%
1980	Fiat	655	43	Ren	160	10	A R	108	7	Citr	80	5	66
1981	Fiat	780	43	Ren	177	10	Lan	114	6	A R	113	6	65
1982	Fiat	751	41	Ren	186	10	Lan	119	6	A R	107	6	63
1983	Fiat	744	47	Ren	162	10	Lan	132	8	A R	104	7	72
1984	Fiat	747	46	Ren	146	9	Lan	141	9	A R	120	7	71
1985	Fiat	747	43	Ren	175	10	Lan	165	9	VW	129	7	70
1986	Fiat	817	45	Lan	175	10	Ren	159	9	VW	129	7	70
1987	Fiat	864	44	Lan	199	10	Ren	157	8	VW	140	7	69
1988	Fiat	956	44	Lan	211	10	Ren	155	7	A R	142	7	67
1989	Fiat	973	41	Lan	234	10	Ren	168	7	VW	154	7	65

The Renault 11

For other years, simply click on the year: 1960-69, 1970-79, 1990-99,
and 2000-2013.

The Cost Of Motoring Should Be Lower

Nissan Sunderland Juke assembly. Robots help keep costs down. 

When comparing the price of appliances today with twenty years ago, you find they have more features yet are cheaper. The reason is because they are made in larger factories with mechanised production lines or cheap labour. Often one factory makes items for many companies, and a different brand name is stuck on the same product as it moves along the conveyor belt.

Cars today are much more advanced with many more safety features and gizmos. In real terms - compared to earnings - they are cheaper too, but prices stubbornly hold up. This means the outlay for a car is high and depreciation is as well. Then add the costs associated with running the vehicle and personal transport takes a large slice of our income. That is what is holding me back from buying a new car. How can I justify the cost of personal transport? It's too much!

Car makers have failed to take advantage of one key thing to reduce prices, co-operation. There are signs producers are realising that those who share will survive and those that don't won't. Still, it is happening too slowly. The cost added to cars by duplicated costs developing things alone is high and it needs to be reduced.

An example of going it alone was MG Rover. It shared much with Honda and the arrangement was profitable for both. BMW became the majority shareholder and a disgruntled Honda left. BMW needed to find a new partner for MGR but didn't. It tried to run the company without sharing the cost of doing so. It soon became very unprofitable and the butt of jokes from BMW. The joke however was on them, as that poor decision cost BMW a lot of money. They failed to ensure MGR's profitable survival through co-operation with another mass car maker.

It is going to be increasingly difficult for car makers to go it alone. Sharing as much as they can with other car makers will save money, increase profits and lowering the price of cars. It would even better if car makers made cars for each other and with clever body changes made them look quite different. That would really reduce prices (and therefore debt and deprecitation for the buyer) but that seems one step most manufacturers won't take. It would make the cost of motoring much lower.