Yesterday at Thruxton the 1300ti was joined by two fab Giulia saloons for a feature in a coming issue of ⁦@AutoItaliaMag⁩. As always photographer Michael Ward put in the hard yards to grab the shot.

Great day meeting fellow Giulia owners and their fabulous cars. Many thanks to Simon and Peter for their help. Now to the writing.

69k jobs in hospitality already wiped-out by tax and NI rises. Top estimate is 150k. The mine closures of the 80s/90s resulted in 170k to 200k jobs lost. The same scale. Staggering.

Our planning system was created in 1947. And for most of recent memory the UK had been in a building frenzy Partly that was WW2 – the Air Ministry built 9,000 miles of runway in six years. That’s 4x the length of our motorway network But also a massive prewar housing boom

Strong line form Nissan's Alan Johnson. "Simple fact is we (UK) are too expensive. Sunderland is most efficient plant Nissan has but once you've paid your elec, gas, NICs etc we are too expensive - any industrial strategy that doesn't tackle that is a waste of time.

Audi and Porsche do not currently have North American production. But rumours at the start of the year suggested there were plans to add these brands to Chatanooga. Audi is due into F1 in 2026, giving a global boost to its brand, esp with 2x F1 races in US. Interesting times.

VW opted for Mexico, initially, followed by Chatanooga in 2011. Its sales are stagnant in the US. It will Be fascinating if VW can find the right products to make in the US to benefit from this advantage.

BMW and Mercedes set-up transplants in the US in the late 1990s for these reasons, plus the concerns about being too successful in the US and being singled-out for ‘taking advantage’.

Contemporary reports listed Mexico as the potential alternative. The deciding factor appears to have been £110m state aid from the Slovakian government. That had to pass EU state aid laws, so was subject to some scrutiny.

Given that one of the basic rules of off-shoring auto production is to balance income v assembly/parts costs (to hedge on currency) it was always interesting that the Defender and Discovery were not built in the US, their likely biggest global markets.

The US auto tariffs bring many decisions into focus, an interesting one is Tata’s decision to select Slovakia for Defender and Discovery production in 2017/2019.

@SMMT I think the govt need to do 4 things: 1 intro more flexibility in ZEV mandate; 2 reintro incentives to boost demand for EVs; 3 build out charging infrastructure much more quickly; 4 industrial strategy to properly back the industry (we submitted our response to Invest 2035 yday).

@jrendell I think the govt need to do 4 things: 1 intro more flexibility in ZEV mandate 2 reintro incentives to boost demand for EVs 3 build out charging infrastructure much more quickly 4 industrial strategy to properly back the industry (we submitted our response to Invest 2035 yday).

@jrendell On the very day @Vauxhall owner @Stellantis announces closure of its #Luton #EV factory with threat to 1100 #jobs because of failures of government #electric #ZEV mandate rules. Timing is all. Embarrassing #GetIt @UKLabour #Change

Business secretary says the government “gets it” over concerns that the ZEV mandate is harming UK car-making. “The ZEV mandate, we inherited, is not operating as it was meant to.” Promises to consult on adjustments, but sticking with 2030 ICE phase-out.

Well @Keir_Starmer @RachelReevesMP @jreynoldsMP @UKLabour can’t say they weren’t warned. Even #Labour peer and former union boss Lord Woodley was ringing alarm bells! Read what I wrote then @DailyMailUK @MailOnline https://t.co/0Z7P1neoxt

@jrendell Or @UKLabour isn’t working? #Change

Very disappointing that the UK looks close to losing another assembly plant. UK van sales are buoyant, though cost pressures on keeping 2xUK plants running clearly too high. Making cars/vans on the same line not easy. New line for vans at Ellesmere? https://t.co/bOMqKAF0Zu

Alfa Romeo Giulia 1300 TI ❤️🇮🇹 #AlfaRomeo #Giulia #GiuliaTI #AROC

A thought - Jim Ratcliffe could buy Recaro Automotive out of administration. He has the wealth, then re-capitalise, steady the business and when stable, sell it off. Finding an alternative supplier is going to take months and £££millions to re-homologate.