McLaren revs up for £50m Rotherham factory opening

British supercar company McLaren will open a factory in Rotherham next month creating 200 jobs.
The new McLaren factory on the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham.The new McLaren factory on the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham.
The new McLaren factory on the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham.

The firm is '˜re-shoring' production of carbon fibre chassis from Austria to a new Composites Technology Centre on the Advanced Manufacturing Park.

The company was handed the keys to its £50m building in June and has been kitting it out with hi-tech machines. Global VIPs are expected to jet in for the grand opening on November 14.

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About 200 jobs are set to be created and the firm estimates it will pump £100m into the region's economy in the first 10 years.

The factory will make the carbon fibre '˜tubs' that form the skeleton of its cars. They will be sent to the McLaren Production Centre in Woking, Surrey, where vehicles have been hand-assembled since 2011.

Some 45 McLaren employees are already working at the University of Sheffield's Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, refining the process for creating tubs. A giant press from Germany was installed in summer.

The project received £12m from the taxpayer via the Sheffield City Region organisation. Construction was by Sheffield firm Finnegan, which also built the Boeing factory nearby.