10 millionth Nissan rolls off UK assembly line

Nissan has reached a very impressive milestone at its UK based Sunderland Plant. The ten millionth vehicle has just rolled off the production line after 33 years of operation.

To put this in perspective the figure allows the factory to boast it’s the fastest in the country. That means a new car has gone down the line every two minutes since 1986.

I love a good analogy, Nissan say that is the equivalent of a traffic jam that would cover the entire equator of the world, some 42,000km of it in fact. 

Steve Marsh the Vice President at the plant said: “Building ten million vehicles is a tremendous achievement for everyone associated with the plant,” 

“Reaching this huge figure has called on all the ingenuity, commitment and spirit of our highly skilled workforce, many of who hail from the North East of England. 

“Together we are determined to continue to drive up the high-quality standards our customers have come to expect over the last three decades.”

So, what car earned the record-breaking achievement? Well it was a humble Vivid Blue Nissan QASHQAI Tekna. The QASHQAI has actually accounted for 3.4 million cars to the overall figure. The second popular car was the Nissan Micra with close to 2.4 million being built in Sunderland.  The other car built at the plant is the Nissan Juke with 1.5 million leaving the factory. 

Back in 1986 it was the first Nissan Bluebird that rolled off the line with production that year being a modest 5,139 for the year. Back then the total workforce was 470, compared to about 7,000 today.