Decline

The French company Peugeot-Citroen bought Linwood in 1979 and closed it in 1981, at a cost of 9,000 jobs in Central Scotland. In this useful source, a Peugeot-Citroen manager explains why car production at Linwood had to be closed down. In particular, he points out that the Linwood car factory could not make money even if the British government paid his company the full cost of every car built in Scotland.

BBC Radio 1981 'The Linwood story.'

George Turnbull British Manager of Peugeot - Citroen

The motor industry, and a plant like Linwood, depends very much on the volume of throughput in the plant. And, whilst in 1979 when we had a strong UK market and sterling not as strong as it is now, we were able to broadcast very much bigger volumes for a new model going into Linwood than we can now. And virtually our export business really from this country, in terms of built up motor cars, is absolutely zero now, because of the change in the exchange rate. And Linwood has been producing up to 30,000 cars a year, the domestic market is now running at about 1.4 million. And although we shall have a reasonable share of that, the total volumes involved for a new model at Linwood just puts the plant in a position where it is no longer viable. The Government said surely if we give you good investment grants and substantial investment grants perhaps you would change your mind but, frankly, we told them that even if they gave us 100 percent grants, we still couldn't make it viable because of the volume factor.