A NEW chapter is set to be written in Leamington’s motoring history.
Liberty Engineering Group has started work on a new £10million Global Technology Centre located next to the original Automotive Products plant off Tachbrook Road.
The new centre, scheduled to open next year, will be home to 100 engineers who will be focused on design and production of various automotive components and systems. They will also be looking at the development of alternatively fuelled and autonomous vehicles.
The company, which employs 5,000 in its UK industrial operations, already supplies several major automotive manufacturers in the UK and overseas.
Sanjeev Gupta, executive chairman of the Liberty House Group and the GFG Alliance, said: “We believe in Britain’s bright future at the forefront of advanced engineering and manufacturing of next-generation vehicles.
“This investment will put Liberty at the heart of automotive’s exciting evolution and deliver cutting edge innovations that builds on our status as a world-leading supplier in the sector.”
Anthony Blackwell, chief technology officer for Liberty Engineering, will lead the development.
He added: “This facility will help us to play a pivotal role in the next generation of vehicles, symbolically on a site that has had such a prominent and proud history in UK engineering.”
Automotive Products Co was founded nearby in 1920 and moved to its Tachbrook Road site in 1927. In its heyday in the early 1980s the operation employed around 9,000 people.
The plant has been at the heart of the UK’s automotive industry for nine decades, manufacturing braking and clutch components for vehicle and motor racing brands including MG, Riley, Daimler, Ford and Jaguar.
Products developed in Leamington have been on the track of every F1 race since the early 1960s and continue to deliver performance products for motorsport, niche and premium automotive. The business was acquired by Liberty in 2015.
A ground-breaking ceremony, attended by Warwick and Leamington MP Matt Western, was recently held to mark the start of work on the Global Technology Centre.
