British car factories: Nissan
In the 1990s thousands of mid-sized Almera and fi rst generation Primeras rolled off the production lines at Washington alongside the Micra.
is that the plant is reputed never to have lost
production over an industrial dispute.
There were clouds on the horizon though
in the shape of one Carlos Ghosn who arrived
courtesy of Renault – or rather the Renault-
Nissan Alliance.
General opinion among industry pundits and
academics alike during the late ’90s was that
car makers needed to achieve a ‘critical mass’ in
order to survive in an increasingly global market
and a general rush of mergers was the result.
One of these was the establishment of a
cross-shareholding between French state-
controlled Renault and Nissan. With Nissan
struggling fi nancially at the time, this was
heavily weighted in Renault’s favour, with the
French fi rm acquiring a 36.8 per cent stake
in Nissan. In turn Nissan pledged to create a
similar holding of Renault stock, although it
was to take until 2001 for the fi rm to be on a
suffi ciently sound fi nancial footing to acquire
15 per cent of Renault, at which point Renault
increased its Nissan holding to 44 per cent.
Given the dominance of Renault in the combined
operation and the fact that Nissan was struggling,
it was no surprise that the arrival of Ghosn as Chief
Operating Offi cer at Nissan was met with some
The Micra has been a top seller for the company and
three generations of this popular model have been
produced at Nissan's Washington plant.
Classic Car Mart Spring 2016 39