Leveraging a boom in "Made in Britain", the government has appointed an automotive ambassador to tour the boardrooms of international car manufacturers, drumming up support to continue a wave of investment that topped £6bn over the past two years.

"The goal is to maintain and extend this [investment] momentum," said Joe Greenwell, a former Ford executive now chief executive of the Automotive Investment Organization. "I want to remove reasons why people may not want to come here."

On the surface, Britain's car industry is in rude health. The record investment into factories run by the likes of Jaguar Land Rover has made a mockery of fears at the turn of the millennium that it was on its deathbed.

Production rose 8 percent last year, against an 8 percent decline in Germany, and a 12 percent fall in France. At the current level of growth, the UK will produce 2 million cars a year by 2017, twice what was built in 2009.

But look closer, past the round-the-clock production at JLR's factories churning out SUVs for the Chinese, or Nissan's plant in Sunderland building 500,000 cars a year, and the foundations are a little shakier.

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