WHILE world car manufacturers are struggling to combat the biggest economic recession for many years, United Kingdom production has been boosted by the expansion plans of two of its most famous names - Rolls-Royce and McLaren.

The McLaren Grand Prix racing group - which has won seven Constructors' World Championships and 10 Drivers' World Championships - is to produce a new range of high-performance, high-technology sports cars.

Meanwhile, Rolls-Royce is planning a further big increase in staff at its production centre at Goodwood, southern England, where engineers have spent the last 18 months preparing to introduce a major new model that revives the Ghost name first used by partners Mr Rolls and Mr Royce in 1906.

The planned McLaren Production Centre will be built next to its existing headquarters and technology centre near London, where a new workforce of 800 will build up to 20 pure mid-engine vehicles a day for delivery from 2011. It expects to increase its annual capacity progressively from 1,000 cars to about 4,000 when the range is complete.

The chairman of McLaren Automotive, Ron Dennis, said: "Ever since we revealed the McLaren F1 sports car in 1992, it has been a long-held dream of mine to launch a McLaren sports car company. Designing, developing and selling globally the best sports cars in the world is just half of that equation; building them to previously unmatched levels of quality, with ground-breaking technologies in a production facility in the UK is key to satisfying that dream."

McLaren has spent more than two years developing a range of pure sports cars under the P11 codename that will build on the success of the iconic McLaren F1 super road car and the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren sports car produced on behalf of Daimler. As part of this plan, McLaren Automotive will be elevated from the group to become an independent company later this year (2009).

Ron Dennis continued: "With planned additional investment in the company of 250 million pounds, proposals in place for a new McLaren car production facility in the UK and the potential for up to 800 skilled jobs, McLaren Automotive's expansion will represent a significant investment in the UK automotive industry."

A company spokesman added: "The McLaren Production Centre (or MPC) will provide employment growth at McLaren, supporting over 800 automotive jobs and an estimated additional 1,500 indirectly in the local economy. The building of the MPC will also support sustained growth of the McLaren brand in providing high-value, high-tech manufacturing and engineering employment in the midst of the global recession.

"With its first product, a high performance and highly efficient sports car due to be delivered in early 2011, McLaren's globally respected road car and racing car development skills are set to redefine the automotive engineering environment in the UK."

In the second significant development in the UK automotive industry, at Rolls-Royce, the permanent workforce stands at 750 but more than 150 jobs are being created to support production of the Ghost that will begin later this year with first customer deliveries following early in 2010.

The new recruitment campaign means Rolls-Royce has taken on nearly 400 newcomers in under two years to swell its workforce to 900.

Many of the jobs have been created to expand the wood, leather and paint shops as well as the assembly areas. The Ghost - originally known as the RR4 and described as a smaller, ultra-luxury saloon with a "magic carpet" ride - will be built on its own dedicated assembly line at Goodwood but will share the output of the specialist workshops with the larger-size Phantom series of cars.

Chief executive officer Tom Purves, describing the new jobs as "good news for the British car industry," added: "Britain has an exceptional talent for automotive production and we are keen to maximise this at Rolls-Royce. Our new model, the Ghost, has enjoyed an extremely positive international response and we now need to put people in place to bring the car to market."

In future, Rolls-Royce will offer a range of five luxury cars made up of the Ghost and standard V12-engined Phantom plus extended wheelbase, coupe and drophead variants of the latter.

In 2008, it sold a record 1,212 cars around the world, a 20 per cent increase over the previous year. Purves says the four-door, five-seater Ghost - powered by an eight-speed, new 6.6-litre turbocharged V12 offering upwards of 500 brake horsepower - will be "as refined and as cosseting as anything that this marque has ever produced."