Aston Martin St Athan plant will play a crucial role in the company’s recovery and future plans.
The luxury car maker will almost double production at St Athan and its Garden, Warwickshire sites this year after working through stock it’s held and which has plagued them since its 2018 shares floatation. The British company plans to make 6,000 vehicles this...
Siemens back Welsh hydrogen car
One of the world’s leading technology companies has stepped in to boost plans to build hydrogen vehicles in Wales for global sale. Siemens UK has signed a memorandum of understanding with Riversimple, of Llandrindod Wells, to make their Rasa car and a local delivery...
From the Chair: February 2021
Journalists and PRs in the motoring world share their love of cars and that has been severely tested over the last 12 months. Jobs have gone, people have gone, plans shelved and events cancelled, including our own WGMW PR Driving Day 2020. Some...
BREXIT for beginners
Britain’s departure from the EU has prompted a flurry of information and advice from the Department for Transport, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency and the DVLA on rule changes affecting Britons driving in Europe from January 1st 2021. Here we round up...
Women on the move in hard times
Women On the Move Against Cancer’s (WOMAC) annual February party is a firm fixture in the automotive calendar and very well supported by the industry, but unfortunately February 2021 will be the first year in more than 40 years that WOMAC won’t be holding its annual...
The UK new car market has fallen by almost a third
The UK new car market fell by almost a third (-29.4%) in 2020, with annual registrations dropping to 1,631,064 units, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. A -10.9% decline in December wrapped up a turbulent 12 months, which saw demand fall by...
From the Chair January 2021
I think every member will be glad to see the back of 2020. It has destroyed many lives, businesses, overturned accepted social norms and events. It has also brought a lot of us closer together, removed veils and opened eyes to what is happening in front of them. As a...
The first car I fell in love with
I learned to drive, or at least did most of my practicing in my mother’s HA Viva, but the car that, fifty years on, really stays with me is the Triumph Herald. A light blue 1966 saloon was the car I did my six instructor lessons in and in which I passed my test. I...
BMW announces electric SUV (at last)
The big surprise about BMW’s press announcement last month was not its new iX, but that a battery-powered SUV had taken so long to emerge from Munich. It is easy to forget, but with the i3 launched in 2013, BMW was one of the first major manufacturers to produce an...
From the Chair: 1 December 2020
After a truly different year, the Western Group of Motoring Writers broke new ground with its first on-line AGM. It didn’t go as well as we wanted but certainly most members who wanted to were able to join in and generally it ran as a Real World round-table...
From the chair: 1 November 2020
Well Lockdown 2.0, or if you live in Wales Lockdown 2.5, is underway and highlights how differently the Coronavirus is being tackled. Strictly speaking, only essential travel is being permitted whether you live in Wales, England or Scotland and it’s been...
Western Group member becomes World Car of the Year judge
One of our members Maxine Ashford has joined the Women’s World Car of the Year 2020 as a judge. Amongst her already busy life as Motoring Journalist, Maxine has now taken on a new position for the Women’s World car of the Year. It is the only awards in the...
JLR moves engine production from Wales
Jaguar Land Rover is moving its petrol V8 engine line from the Ford Bridgend Engine Plant to its in-house power centre at Wolverhampton. Workers at the South Wales engine plant closing at the end of September, have been building buffer stocks of the V8 engines to...
Aston Martin Lagonda starts production of their luxury DBX SUV at St Athan, Wales
Aston Martin production of their luxury £154,000 DBX SUV started recently in Wales. The big four-door model was announced for St Athan, some 20 miles west of Cardiff, in 2016 and over the last four years the company has been converting three massive superhangers into...
Approaching a cliff
Tens of thousands of jobs are likely to disappear from the UK automotive sector before the end of the year. Some 11,349 jobs so far axed following lockdown will grow and despite this week’s 11% rise in new car registrations the outlook is bleak. That’s because the...Our Social Wall from Members
The number of vehicles on our roads reached a record 41.4 million in 2023, according to the latest SMMT figures
https://automotiveblog.co.uk/2024/04/record-number-of-vehicles-on-uk-roads/
Awesome classics on display at the Drive It Day event (Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs) at my local pub, in aid of the NSPCC’s Childline
Ferrari 412GT sells at auction
My official souvenir picture from this week's Mazda Epic Drive in Morocco, courtesy of photographer Dave Smith
My official souvenir picture from this week's Mazda Epic Drive in Morocco, courtesy of photographer Dave Smith
Hispano Suiza teases design of new Carmen Sagrera #hypercar https://tinyurl.com/yrfek7cn #Spain #supercar #luxury @HispanoSuizaCar
The new CX-80 - the biggest ever #Mazda to be brought to the UK by the company - will arrive in the autumn https://tinyurl.com/yrfek7cn
#Hyundai reveals pricing & specs of new Santa Fe https://tinyurl.com/yrfek7cn @Hyundai_UK
