The Dunlop Motorsport Factory in it’s hayday
125 years of British manufacturing is to be demolished later this summer as the bull dozers move in on the Dunlop motorsport factory in Birmingham.
The factory supplied race teams with hundreds of specifications of car and motorcycle tyres, serviced by 20 trucks which travelled the world’s circuits throughout the sporting calendar.
The Castle Bromwich plant had been sold to Indian owned Jaguar Land Rover in 2013 which lead to its closure soon after, costing 300 local jobs. Production was ultimately transferred to Germany, France and elsewhere in Europe.
The closure, and destruction, of the factory brings to an end successful motorsport partnerships with the city, including supplying the famous Bentley Boys to five wins in the Le Mans 24-Hour race between 1924 and 1930 and winning eight championships in Formula One in the 1960s.
Dunlop also played a crucial role in the glamorous Land Speed Record battles between the war years when Sir Henry Segrave’s Golden Arrow vied with Sir Malcolm Campbell’s Bluebird and the American challengers.
Britain’s £9 billion motor sport industry will now have to depend on imported tyres from across the globe, no longer of the high quality produced by skilled Birmingham workers.
Appalling that this building has never been listed. I drove past it yesterday, it is such an iconic building.
Actually having read another article to find out more information on this news, I feel that the photo you have used is a misleading – it certainly mislead me. The building in your photo IS listed and it is not being knocked down. The buildings that have had planning permission applied for but not yet granted, to be knocked down are large, fairly grotty modern factory / warehousing. Mourn the loss of an iconic British industry yes, but do not mourn the demolition of some fairly nasty warehousing.
Thanks Susannah for clarifying the issue of the image. Yes, I agree. The building is not as important as the skilled workforce that have long been ousted from their jobs.
I have also just read this about AGA Rangemaster. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-33181844 Whilst this is not a done deal at the moment I really feel some consumer power should be applied to the board to persaude them against this. I see no good reason for them to sell, they are still profitable and growing. If they feel they are not the people to take this forward then a board of directors who do should be appointed, they should sell to another British company, or best of all, put together a partnership (John Lewis style) to secure the future of the company. I am going to write to them and would ask that everyone who reads this consider doing the same. I would also the consider the Business Secretary and the local MP.
I should have said if they feel they are not the people to take the company forward as is, then a new board of directors should be appointed who will.
i thought this had been turned into a hotel long ago or am i in the wrong place
You might be thinking about another iconic temple of British manufacturing…. this sort of thing happens a lot.
You’re right. It’s a Travelodge or some such thing and has been for a few years. I was surprised to read that Fort Dunlop was still going – I worked over the road from there 15 years ago and I didn’t realise it was still producing then. By then, Fort Dunlop had been turned into a shopping centre and the building in the picture was derelict, before it was turned into a hotel. The manufacturing must have been going on in some hidden factory units round the back.
In my experience if quality in manufacturing is poor then this is the kind of situation which arises? JLR are unlikely to buy a company & keep it unless a quality product results & profit is maintained. My brand new high performance car had Dunlop tyres factory fitted and they were awful. They wore prematurely and emitted unbearable road noise. I now have Continentals fitted with 100% improvement in quality & handling. Sorry to muddy your waters on that one British Family.
I agree that quality needs to be central. Our concern is the correlation between British owned companies being bought and then quickly either asset stripped or production move abroad.
but where is it
Castle Bromwich
but where in castle bromwich
Ashold Farm Rd, Birmingham B24 9PL
The building in the picture is on the main road, next to The Fort shopping centre. It’s almost in Erdington really. You can see it from the M6, just past Spaghetti Junction. I don’t know where the actual factory units are.
I only use AVON tyres. ZZ5 and ZZ3 are really good and this now indian owned company manufacturates in the U.K.!
I agree. Avon tyres, especially motorcycle tyres, are fantastic.
Whilst I sympathise with the loss of jobs, heavy manufacturing is not where the UK should be going.
We lack raw materials, in this case rubber, but also steel, coal etc. We should follow the example of Switzerland who many years ago who, suffering from few raw materials and mountains rather than arable land, decided to make small things like watches & clocks and turned themselves into a tax haven.
With equipment getting smaller and smaller there are huge opportunities in specialist electronics and Mr Juncker has set up a tax haven in Luxembourg so we can do the same.
Big companies are history for Britain. We need small dynamic businesses, but our government have sacks over their heads.
Whilst I agree that small dynamic companies, high value and high tech manufacturing are great we should not give up on heavy industries. We are not a small country in terms of population and the economy and there is plenty of demand for the products of heavy industry both at home and abroad. Our economy is big enough to sustain a broad spectrum of manufacturing and if we want long term stability and success that is exactly what we should be doing.