CAR PRODUCED EVERY NINETY SECONDS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21966, 15 December 1936, Page 12

CAR PRODUCED EVERY NINETY SECONDS

LARGEST SINGLE-UNIT MOTOR FACTORY IN EUROPE (from our own correspondent.) LONDON, November 21. Every minute and a half of the working day a new motor-car leave, the works of a large hrm of motor manufacturers in Birmingham. This is the largest single-unit motor factory in Europe, employing directly and indirectly about 120,000 workers. The factory'has a road frontage of more than a mile, and in all covers 1 00 feres of land. From all parts of the Midlands come people to work in this vflst 130 tory Three thousand use bicycles, another thousand have motor-cycles, and hundreds come in their own cars. Five special trains bring other workers, and thousands travel to and from work in 120 special motor coaches. Actually this vast factory costs £l2O a minute to run. Wages cost £BO,OOO a week, and the boilers and furnaces need 1800 tons of coal and 140 tons of fuel oil weekly. Four miles of carpet, 17 miles of leather cloth and 28 miles of rubber tubing, 17,000 gallons of paint and the hides from nearly 4000 cows are used every week in the production of car bodies. Altogether, the weight of the raw materials used exceeds 4000 tons weekly. The body press shop, with 50 power presses, some costing £IO,OOO each, uses 500 tons of sheet steel weekly, and 120 miles of steel strip for radiators are also comsumed. The factory also uses 4,000,000 nuts and bolts a week, not to mention 100,000 tyres, about 100,000 sparking plqgs and two tons of tacks.