They don't Mackem like they used to

Nissan has celebrated 25 years of manufacturing in the UK by giving an old Bluebird the innards of a new Leaf. John Evans tells the Sunderland story

- John Evans

“When I first saw the New bird, it all came flooding back fondly,” says Peter Robinson, today a production supervisor at Nissan's manufacturing plant in Sunderland, but back in 1987 a fresh-faced 19year-old keen to make an impression in the trim and chassis shop.

At that time, there were 490 people working at the plant, which had opened just a year earlier, in September 1986, assembling one model, the Bluebird, in saloon and liftback forms. Today, with Sunderland's total production output now exceeding 10.5 million cars, more than 6000 toil away across a much larger site-building Jukes, Leafs and Qashqais.

Robinson, 54, is one of four factory veterans who I've headed north to meet. They're the living embodiment of something very special: a great British (and Japanese) car-making success story whose next chapter (called Nissan EV36Zero) has begun.

But back to the New bird that triggered so many memories for Robinson. In fact, like him and his long-serving workmates, this car is a bridge that spans Nissan's past, present and future. In reality, it's a 1989 Bluebird Liftback GS built at the plant and powered not by the 1.8-litre petrol engine it left with but by the battery, inverter and electric motor from a current-model Leaf, also built at Sunderland. It was Nissan UK's idea: a commemorative gift to itself celebrating 35 years of manufacturing, a period during which not only the Bluebird has left the Sunderland plant but also its successor, the Primera, the trendsetting Qashqai and the Micra, Note, Juke and Leaf - with honourable mentions for the Infiniti Q30 and QX30.

MEET THE NISSAN VETERANS

Remarkably, there are still 19 people working at the Nissan Sunderland plant who were either there when it opened or arrived shortly afterwards.