Castle Bromwich builds its last petrol Jaguar

Serving first as a manufacturing facility for the WW2 Spitfire fighter, Castle Bromwich has been a hub of UK car manufacturing since 1945. Indeed, while Jaguar only took over the site wholesale in 1977, it was Fisher and Ludlow, producers of car body pressings for BMC and latterly British leyland, that took it over at the end of the war.

Even beforehand the man in charge of the place while it replenished our country’s Spitfire stocks, was Lord Nuffield, otherwise known as the founder of the Morris car company.

Jaguar’s strict history at the plant goes back 47 years, through the marque’s Leyland, Ford and current Tata eras. It’s really the heart of Jaguar as we’ve come to know it, with beloved defunct models such as the XK, XJ and S-Type all produced there throughout their production runs, in addition to the discontinued XE, XF and F-Type.

The facility had been undergoing upgrades as late as 2018 and 2019, to produce an upcoming all-electric Jaguar XJ but that model was scrapped late in development. Jaguar’s premiership at the time insisting however that its cancellation and the eventual stoppage of existing models built there wouldn’t spell the end for car manufacturing at the facility.

We look forward to clarification of Jaguar’s plans for Castle Bromwich as its 2025 reinvention looms. In the meantime, we also look forward to celebrating 75 years of the great Jaguar XK straight-six, at the 2024 Goodwood Revival.