In one of his first interviews as chief executive of the Automotive Investment Organisation (AIO), Joe Greenwell has said that the UK car industry is on course to create 15,000 jobs in its supply chain over the next three years. Mr Greenwell, whose organisation was set up by the Government in the summer, believes that the sector can capitalise on over £6 billion of investment in the last two years and an 8% rise in production in 2012.

He said: “The goal is to maintain and extend this momentum. We need to recapture and repatriate business that we lost in the past few decades; business that went elsewhere to places like western and eastern Europe and Asia. We want to get it back.”

Mr Greenwell, a former executive at Ford, intends to tour the boardrooms of international car manufacturers, garnering support for the UK market. “I want to remove reasons why people may not want to come here to manufacture,” he added.

Mr Greenwell is optimistic about the future: “UK automotive is a pretty good place to do business right now. I cannot think of another time when more stars have been aligned. The old image of the dark satanic mills is gone.”

However, in the same week as Mr Greenwell was speaking, Aston Martin confirmed that it was to abandon manufacture of its two-door Cygnet ‘city’ car, after selling fewer than 150 units. The vehicle was based on the Toyota iQ, but was sold for three times the price. The Warwickshire-based company had planned to sell up to 4,000 Cygnets every year to “environmentally conscious city dwellers”.