The Jaguar Land Rover Gaydon Centre, which is situated north-west of the village of Gaydon, Warwickshire,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, is one of the principal engineering centres of

Jaguar Land Rover Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC is the holding company of Jaguar Land Rover Limited (also known as JLR), and is a British multinational automobile manufacturer which produces luxury vehicles and sport utility vehicles. Jaguar Land Rover is a ...

and the location of the headquarters of

Land Rover Land Rover is a British brand of predominantly four-wheel drive, off-road capable vehicles, owned by multinational car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), since 2008 a subsidiary of India's Tata Motors. JLR currently builds Land Rove ...

. The site houses a design, research and development centre and extensive test track facilities and is used for the design and development of Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles. The site, along with the smaller

Aston Martin Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC is an English manufacturer of luxury sports cars and grand tourers. Its predecessor was founded in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford. Steered from 1947 by David Brown, it became associated wi ...

facility adjacent, occupies the land that was once the RAF

V bomber The "V bombers" were the Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft during the 1950s and 1960s that comprised the United Kingdom's strategic nuclear strike force known officially as the V force or Bomber Command Main Force. The three models of strategic ...

base of RAF Gaydon. The

British Motor Museum The British Motor Museum in Warwickshire, England holds the world's largest collection of historic British cars, with over 300 cars on display from the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust and the Jaguar Heritage Trust. History The creation ...

is also located on the same site.

History

By the middle of the 1970s, the government had closed RAF Gaydon. In the late 1970s

British Leyland British Leyland was an automotive engineering and manufacturing conglomerate formed in the United Kingdom in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd (BLMC), following the merger of Leyland Motors and British Motor Holdings. It was partly ...

purchased the site to convert it into a vehicle development facility, and proving ground and it became the headquarters of BL Technology (BLT). In 1980 BLT awarded a contract for the construction of a wind tunnel there. The ownership of the site passed, along with what was by then called the

Rover Group The Rover Group plc was the British vehicle manufacturing conglomerate known as "BL plc" until 1986 (formerly British Leyland), which had been a state-owned company since 1975. It initially included the Austin Rover Group car business (comprisi ...

, to

British Aerospace British Aerospace plc (BAe) was a British aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. Formed in 1977, in 1999 it purchased Marconi ...

in 1988, and subsequently in 1994 to BMW. In 2000, the site was included in the sale by BMW of the Land Rover business to

Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

. Ford, which at that time also owned

Jaguar Cars Jaguar (, ) is the luxury vehicle brand of Jaguar Land Rover, a British multinational car manufacturer with its headquarters in Whitley, Coventry, England. Jaguar Cars was the company that was responsible for the production of Jaguar car ...

and

, established the new Aston Martin headquarters and design, development and production facilities on the site, and started to use the Land Rover facilities for some Jaguar work. When Ford sold Aston Martin into private ownership in 2007, the Aston Martin facilities on the site were included in the deal, the remainder of the site continuing to be occupied by their, by then, integrated Jaguar Land Rover development operations. Jaguar Land Rover is now owned by

Tata Motors Tata Motors Limited is an Indian multinational automotive manufacturing company, headquartered in Mumbai, India, which is part of the Tata Group. The company produces passenger cars, trucks, vans, coaches, buses. Formerly known as Tata Eng ...

. The car park has 166 chargers for electric vehicles, at 7 kW AC each.

References

* {{Automotive industry in the United Kingdom Jaguar Land Rover Buildings and structures in Warwickshire Motor vehicle assembly plants in the United Kingdom

History

See also

References