Jaguar Land Rover has confirmed it will build a new engine plant in Wolverhampton to produce its next-generation four-cylinder petrol and diesel engines.
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The British luxury car firm will invest £355m in the new facility, which will directly create 750 highly skilled jobs, plus hundreds more in the supply chain.
It will be located on the i54 business park in Staffordshire, on the Wolverhampton border. Construction will be aided by a £10m government grant for business, as the new facility is in an official enterprise zone.
The announcement was made by deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg MP and secretary of state for business, innovation and skills Dr Vince Cable MP.
Dr Ralf Speth, CEO of JLR, said: ‘As part of our long-term strategy for the JLR business, we will design, engineer and manufacture a new family of advanced engines.
‘This is a major commitment for our company and we will produce these advanced, highly-efficient engines for future Jaguar and Land Rover models at a new facility in the UK.
‘The all-new family of 4 cylinder engines will increase JLR’s capability to offer high performance engines with class-leading levels of refinement, whilst ensuring continued significant reductions in vehicle emissions.’
No further details of the new engines have been released, but they are likely to replace Ford-bought units currently used in Land Rover and Jaguar models. These include the 2.2-litre diesel used by models such as the new Range Rover Evoque and Jaguar XF 2.2D.
The Range Rover Evoque also uses a Ford-derived 2.0-litre petrol turbo motor.
Construction of the new facility begins in 2012, and will take two years.
