JANUARY 11, 2001
UK Motor Sport Industry Announcement
BRITAIN's Motor Sport Industry Association seized the initiative on the opening day of the Autosport International Show, by announcing the initial results of a survey on the scale, scope and future of the sport in the UK.
Headlining the MIA's announcements is the fact that Britain boasts 2400 motor sport engineering and service companies, employing approximately 25,000 motor sport engineers and generating an annual turnover of £4.8 billion - leading to a direct comparison between British dominance of the motor sport industry and Hollywood's dominance of the movie-making world.
Such dominance accounts for 75% of the world's single-seat racecar production, with only Italy, Germany and Japan as industry rivals on the global stage and even then specializing in more niche areas such as wheels, sportscars and rallying. This puts motor sport firmly in the top five of Britain's biggest export earners - ahead of agriculture and steel - and might therefore enhance the recent calls on the British government to help fund development of Silverstone as the home of the nation's blue riband event, The British Grand Prix.
This good news for Britain was, however, slightly tempered by the fact that 80% of the industry's turnover was generated by only 50 of those companies involved in the survey, and if this success story is to be continued then such hurdles as European Union laws on working hours, the increasing performance gap between the 'haves' and 'have-nots' and the cyclical nature of investment need to be overcome.