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John Mahoney7 Aug 2019
FEATURE

BEST OF BRITISH: Behind the scenes at JLR's Halewood plant

We take a VIP tour around the plant once labelled the worst car factory in the world and witness its remarkable revival

Liverpool might be more synonymous with The Beatles and football but it’s also the home of Jaguar Land Rover’s Halewood plant.

Standing less than two clicks away from the River Mersey and just a stone's throw from Liverpool's John Lennon airport, the ugly, imposing factory has dominated the landscape here since it was first built back in the early 1960s.

It began life originally as a Ford plant, but Liverpool was never the Blue Oval's first choice.

Despite plenty of able and willing workers, the area consisted of a large unskilled workforce that was more used to unloading ships down the docks rather than the highly technical work of assembling cars.

But lured by big government-backed grants, Ford took a risk and went ahead and built the plant.

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It was hoped cars would begin merrily rolling off the line in 1962 but freakish wet weather delayed the first car – a lime green Anglia de Luxe – from eventually trundling out of the factory gates almost a year later in '63.

The inauspicious start began what would be a rollercoaster ride of highs and lows for Halewood.

The bleakest lows were no doubt in the 1970s and 1980s when, under Ford's watch, the factory became a battleground for class warfare – a place where managers hid in their offices while, on the untidy, poorly-organised shop floors, workers spent much of their days betting, smoking, sleeping and arguing… more often than not over the most recent Liverpool-Everton football clash.

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By 1997, Ford had had enough and all-but blamed the Halewood plant for its half-baked Escort, announcing that it was moving production for its replacement, the Focus, elsewhere.

By then Halewood's workforce had dropped from 14,500 employees at its peak to just 5000 and it was thought the plant was simply doomed to close.

Then, something unexpected happened.

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British revival

Ford-owned Jaguar leapt to the rescue, announcing it would make Halewood the home for its new X-Type sedan and wagon.

Injecting much needed cash and a regime of culture change, against all odds the Jags execs proved the factory was capable of producing a premium car.

In 2003, convinced of its new-found abilities and a level of quality never achieved under Ford, Land Rover joined Jaguar at the Liverpool-based facility to build its new Freelander, helping cement its future.

Today the factory builds both the new second-generation Range Rover Evoque and the Land Rover Discovery Sport.

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From sheet metal to finished product

Around 4000 employees work at Halewood, helping to shift around 800 cars a day to 110 markets globally. Or, if you like, a new vehicle rolls off the line every 92 seconds, give or take.

The production process starts with the pressing of flat sheets of metal, rolled into what look like giant wheels of silver liquorice, and this factory belts out 1250 panels per hour.

The colossal metal stamping machines are mounted on rubber pads deep underground yet the sound and energy around these machines, whose acoustics reverberate for miles, is soul shaking.

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Then you have the body shop that features over 1000 robots and covers an area roughly the size of 22 soccer pitches. These robots perform 850 million welds per year and ultrasound scanning is used to ensure every one of them is up to spec. According to JLR, the weld integrity from the autonomous robotry is above 99 per cent.

The car bodies then heard to the paint tower, which holds up to 600 vehicle bodies. It takes between 10 and 14 hours for the paint work to be completed, and then it's off to engine dress where the starter motor, hoses, gearbox, driveshafts and finally the engine marriage occur.

The trim and final assembly line comes next and measures about 3.5 miles long, or 5.6km. Around 400 workers attend this area where the seats, trims, dashboards and all the other stuff useful for driving a car are installed.

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A hard day's night

Working three shifts, 24 hours a day, five days a week, Halewood makes an incredible 800 cars a day and up to 185,000 vehicles a year.

Now one of Europe's most advanced plants, the Jaguar Land Rover plant's transformation has soaked up hundreds of millions of dollars of investment to implement state-of-the-art tech, like the latest laser welding and robotics technology, in a bid to ensure world-class manufacturing levels.

Speaking of quality, over the eight hours assembly time and 10 hours spent in a paint shop, every car that rolls off the line undergoes four hours of dedicated quality control checks.

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Not captured in the incredible numbers now involved, nor the fit and finish of cars like the new Evoque. Every single one of its employees has a solid sense of pride that's felt in  where it counts, on the shop floor.

"There’s a good heartbeat about the place. A good level of emotion and tension," explained Kevin Wood, the Body-in-White Technology Manager at Halewood.

Where once Halewood was considered one of the worst places to build a car, today it's become one of the best. If you ever find yourself Merseyside then pop in to the Land Rover Experience for a tour of Halewood.

It's Fizzy T in Hi-Vizzy giving a quick Forklift review
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