It was inevitable anyway. some people seem to forget that the company is French and will not have their hearts firmly set on a place. they can move to where-ever makes them the most money and so on
The factory was actually originally the old Rootes group plant (Sunbeam, hillman, etc.) which was sold by Chrysler to PSA. It's arguably a bigger loss than the closure of Rover in a way.
The workers there ought to count themselves lucky.
First of all Chrysler bailed them out, then they realised they were wasting their time, and sold to Peugeot.
Had it not been for the generosity ( i say that because the Ryton plant is a charity case) then the communist Scargill-type trade-unionists would have been out on their ear in the late 70s.
Back then, it was picket lines and militant behaviour. They churned out some god awful heaps like the Alpine and the Sunbeam... Not to mention the Tagora which was supposed to be a luxury car for goodness sake.
Left-wing "up the workers" politics reigned supreme and the tail wagged the dog.
So all you grumblers whove worked there 30 years and remember the days of being "owed a living" for doing nothing, count yourself lucky Chrysler and Peugeot wasted their money on keeping it going.
I cant think of one decent car which has emulated from that factory.
The 406 coupe is a beautiful car i agree. Its 10 years old now & still looks classical & stylish. Cant think of any other mass market, 10 year old car which has worn its years so well.
Its 3.0 liter 194bhp V6 is a lovely engine yes. That was designed and built at Peugeot's Mulhouse plant in Alsace, France. The rest of the mechanicals are identical to a 406 saloon V6 and were also designed and built in Mulhouse, France.
The coachwork was designed and built by Pininfarina in Modena, and shipped to Mulhouse to be fitted to the car.
Essentially youre getting a designer car for Mondeo prices.
Originally posted by Palmira: The workers there ought to count themselves lucky.
First of all Chrysler bailed them out, then they realised they were wasting their time, and sold to Peugeot.
Had it not been for the generosity ( i say that because the Ryton plant is a charity case) then the communist Scargill-type trade-unionists would have been out on their ear in the late 70s.
Back then, it was picket lines and militant behaviour. They churned out some god awful heaps like the Alpine and the Sunbeam... Not to mention the Tagora which was supposed to be a luxury car for goodness sake.
Left-wing "up the workers" politics reigned supreme and the tail wagged the dog.
So all you grumblers whove worked there 30 years and remember the days of being "owed a living" for doing nothing, count yourself lucky Chrysler and Peugeot wasted their money on keeping it going.
I cant think of one decent car which has emulated from that factory.
Here here! It is the scourge of the midlands, Union led workforces and inept management for decades that eventually brought the industry down to it's knees. The peugeot factory is really on it's last legs and has had very little investment. I used to live down the road from it and it's true, the only new cars you saw in that area were Pugs (mostly 206s and 307s). the whole area pretty much worked there in some form and evryone had a, 'this is my right' attitude. I hope in the retraining and diversification, their stinking attitude changes.
I do, Palmy, have to disagree on one point, the 206 is an ok car. So not everything produced there was junk.
Originally posted by Palmira: The 406 coupe is a beautiful car i agree. Its 10 years old now & still looks classical & stylish. Cant think of any other mass market, 10 year old car which has worn its years so well.
Its 3.0 liter 194bhp V6 is a lovely engine yes. That was designed and built at Peugeot's Mulhouse plant in Alsace, France. The rest of the mechanicals are identical to a 406 saloon V6 and were also designed and built in Mulhouse, France.
The coachwork was designed and built by Pininfarina in Modena, and shipped to Mulhouse to be fitted to the car.
Essentially youre getting a designer car for Mondeo prices.
..also I don't think it's fair to blame the closure on dark days of the 70s. They had come through that, though they had lost any of the original Rootes marques in the process.
I think the truth is that when 206 production ended, it was cheaper to tool up for the new model elsewhere.
The new Peugeot 207 is a small and small-engined car to be produced in the UK,considering high labour costs.Wasn't the UK that insisted on EU enlargement eastwards...?This is the first result...This car is to be sold mainly in the Eurozone countries and currency conversions from pound to euro because of higher british interest rates make harmful and vulnerable the british production...Eastern European countries have much lower labour costs,Spain has relatively lower labour costs in the Eurozone and France is the base of PSA...
Whilst its true that higher interest rates make the cost of buying Sterling to pay the workforce rise (I say the workforce because it would not for instance have any bearing on the costs of parts sourced, say from China and paid for in Yuan) this should be considered in line with the fact that the UK has lower corporation taxes than much of Europe and currently enjoys its highest net return on capital ever.
PSA's decision seemingly flies in the face of those currently being made by the rest of the world's companies. This came as a surprise to me but figures from the UN show that in 2005, the UK attracted more inward investment than any other country on earth. OECD has Britian ranked among the top nations for FDI and the World Bank has us top of the EU for places to do business.
We may be foreign-owned these days but Johnny seems to be doing rather nicely out of it. Peugeot's may well prove to be a thoroughly false economy.
_________________________ "Forward", he cried, from the rear, and the front rank died. And the General sat, and the lines on the map moved from side to side.
Think that its more to do with protecting French jobs, Boig, they are much more sensitive to losing their car manufacturing companies that we are - it would have been more logical to close one of the French factories and keep Coventry open with the East European ones, but that would be unacceptable for a French company - so we cop it despite being reasonably efficient.
