Rootes Car Factory

From spray shop to assembly - life on the line for the workers of Ryton.

These February 1967 scenes were shot at the Rootes car factory at Ryton on Dunsmore near Coventry. At the time the firm was riven with strikes so we are probably lucky to see the plant so busy. The men are assembling the range known to the firm as Arrow - the most common variant on the forecourt being the Hillman Hunter, which was made at Ryton from 1966 to 1969, after which production was moved to Linwood in Scotland.

The factory at Ryton was originally a shadow plant assembling aircraft during the Second World War. In June 1964 the American Chrysler company began to gradually take over Rootes, eventually taking full control in the late 1960s. The Americans produced cars at Ryton against a storm of industrial unrest until the European arm of Chrysler was sold to Peugeot-Citroen in 1978. The axe finally fell on the Ryton plant at the end of 2006.