How hard is it to buy a British car today? Pretty easy, actually. MG Rover may be no more than a fading memory – plans by its Chinese owners to revive the marque in Britain have stalled. But Mini, Land Rover, and Jaguar still build cars here by the ten of thousands, even if those making the big decisions behind them are German or Indian.

Add to those the many Vauxhalls, Nissans, Hondas and Toyotas built here and there’s a broad choice, from £7000 superminis to £40,000 luxury saloons. And that’s without the niche makers, such as Lotus, Morgan and Noble. In all, 1.4 million cars emerge from UK factories for sale locally and for export, over half of them wearing Honda, Nissan or Toyota badges.

But once you start checking what’s built where, you’ll hit surprises. Ford, despite its US owners, has long been regarded as British as Branston pickle or tweed caps. But, currently no Ford you can buy is assembled in Britain. They’re put together in Belgium, Germany, or Spain. Even so, Ford has four UK factories building engines and gearboxes for many European Fords, plus Land Rovers and Jaguars. Petrol and diesel motors go from Bridgend, Dagenham, Southampton and Halewood to all over Europe. Ford also builds Transit vans here.

Vauxhall, meanwhile, does build cars, but only five-door versions of its Astra small hatchback, which they put together at Ellesmere Port. Astra vans are also built there. At the make’s Luton base, it makes Vivaro vans, the Nissan Primastar and the Renault Trafic. Other Vauxhalls are built elsewhere across Europe: the make’s newest family car, the Insignia, will roll off assembly lines in Belgium when production begins later in the year. The Insignia will take the place of the make’s chief rival to the Mondeo, the Vectra.

Mini currently builds the One and Cooper hatchbacks, convertibles and Clubman estate models at its Oxford plant, turning out over 260,000 vehicles per year. However, the Crossmax, an off-road capable Mini which is to become the fourth member of the family will be put together in Graz, Austria, by Magna Steyr Fahrzeugtechnik. This company also builds the X3 off-roader for Mini’s parent company, BMW.
Back in Britain, the Hams Hall factory in the West Midlands builds engines for the Mini and also the BMW 1-series.
Honda turns out thousands of Civics and CR-V off-roaders from its Swindon factory, even exporting the Civic Type-R performance hatchback to Japan. The company made 237,000 cars there last year. Currently, the only Civic sold in Britain but not made here is the Hybrid petrol/electric saloon. Look back a decade and you’ll find that Honda even made some Rovers – during the 1990s, the 400 and 600 models shared bodies and oily bits with Concertos, Civics and Accords.

As has long been the case, Japanese companies now build the most cars in Britain. Nissan makes Micra hatchbacks and Micra coupe-cabriolets in Sunderland, along with the Qashqai and the Note. Don’t assume that every other Nissan makes the long sea journey here from Japan, though, because the Pathfinder off-roader is readied in Barcelona.

Toyota began building cars at Burnaston back in 1992 – the first car to emerge from the factory was a Carina E – and now assembles the Auris five-door hatchback and Avenis line-up for the UK and for export.
The picture wouldn’t be complete without Britain’s best-known remaining car makes, Land Rover and Jaguar. Both are, as we write, in the process of passing from Ford’s ownership and into the hands of Tata, India’s biggest auto manufacturer. Company head Ratan Tata also owns Corus, the company formed from the merger of the former British Steel and Dutch firm Koninklijke Hoogovens.

Tata has said that he intends to preserve and develop both brands, keeping production at existing sites. Land Rover currently builds 200,000 Defenders, Freelander, Discoverys and Range Rovers a year at Solihull, exporting 3 of every 4.

Jaguar, meanwhile, builds the XJ6, X-type and new XF in the Midlands. Its newest car, the XF, rolls off the line at Castle Bromwich, near Birmingham. Jaguar also has factories in Halewood and Coventry. The Browns Lane site in Coventry, Jaguar’s home for 53 years was sold in 2005 and is about to become an office and warehouse park. Jaguar has kept a corner of the site for its factory making the wood veneers for its car’s cabins.
Peugeot has for decades built cars in Britain at its Ryton plant, but that ended a couple of years back when the 206 became an obsolete model.

Meanwhile, what of Longbridge, until four years ago home to MG Rover? The factory was pulled down in 2006 and much of the land used to build a cinema and entertainment complex and retail park. Nanjing Automotive Corporation, the Chinese company that now owns the MG marque, has said that it plans to restart production of its version of the MG TF two-seat open sports car, using part of the site. Originally, this was to have happened over a year ago, putting cars for sale into a reborn MG dealer network last autumn. But the plans have been delayed and Nanjing has gone quiet on when it will start building cars, although the company blames ‘tooling problems’ for the hold-up. Nanjing has just ended business links with one major supplier who was to build body panels for the MGTF. The company has, however, built some saloons in China for its home market, based on the MG ZT/Rover 75 saloon designs it bought after MG Rover collapsed.

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