People aged 55 and over can now do what they like with their retirement savings rather than have to buy an annuity to get a guaranteed monthly income for life.
This will affect an estimated c500,000 individuals with many likely to cash in their pension pots to buy a new car, creating a potential car sales bonanza for car dealers.
And wouldn’t it be nice if this could benefit UK based car manufacturers and contribute the entire price paid directly into the UK economy? Rather than shoring up rival German, French and non British manufacturers and economies perhaps?
Clearly car dealerships selling these European cars employ UK staff, pay taxes and contribute to the UK economy in this way but for those who would prefer to ‘Buy British’ what are your choices?
Only three are wholly British owned and expensive with it, but happily there are still cars that are made ie assembled in Britain, providing important manufacturing jobs, as follows.
BRITISH OWNED
+ Caterham Cars Ltd
+ McLaren Automotive
+ Morgan Motor Company Ltd
MADE IN BRITAIN
The following companies build cars in Britain, but are not UK owned.
Aston Martin is owned by two Kuwaiti companies (Investment Dar and Adeem Investments) and builds the DB9, Rapide, Virage and DBS in Gaydon, Warwickshire.
Bentley Motors is owned by Volkswagen and builds the Continental, Flying Spur and Mulsanne models in Crewe, Cheshire.
Honda is Japanese owned and builds the Civic, CRV and Jazz in Swindon, Wiltshire.
Jaguar/Land Rover cars are built in the West Midlands and Liverpool and owned by Tata Motor Company of India.
Lotus is Malaysian owned and builds the Elise, Evora and Exige in Norfolk.
MG Motors builds the MG3 and MG6 in Birmingham, owned by SAIC of China.
MINI builds in Cowley, Oxford and is owned by BMW in Germany.
Nissan is Japanese owned and builds the Juke, Qashqai, Note and LEAF in Sunderland.
Toyota is Japanese owned and builds the Auris and Avensis in Derbyshire.
Rolls Royce is owned by BMW and builds the Ghost, Phantom and Wraith in West Sussex.
Vauxhall Motors are part of US General Motors and build Astras at Ellesmere Port and the Vivaro van in Luton
In case you wonder why there is no mention of Ford, they no longer produce cars in the UK but still manufacture engines in Bridgend & Dagenham as well as transmissions in Halewood.
And for those that might think I have forgotten the iconic three wheeled Robin Reliant, this was transferred to a company called B&N Plastics in Suffolk that still supplies car parts but sadly there are no production plans for new Robins at the moment…
FOXY
PS: If I have missed anything or got this wrong in any way please email me at info@foxyladydrivers.com to update this.