Volkswagen plant firing on all cylinders

A spokesman for the VW SA said the plant will now run at full capacity with three working shifts for the remainder of the year. It is scheduled to produce 107 200 engines in 2012 of which 50 200 engines are for the locally built Polo and Polo Vivo models, whilst 57 000 engines will be produced for India, Mexico and China (which is Volkswagen South Africa's biggest export market for engines).

"Exports are a key element of our business model and whilst our Polo exports tend to grab the headlines, engines and components form an integral part of our export strategy," said David Powels, managing director of Volkswagen Group South Africa." With the uncertainty in world markets at the moment, it is a welcome additional order for our plant."

The Uitenhage plant, which opened in 1980, has to date produced over 1.662m engines. These include engines for the Citi Golf and T3 bus as well as for many other variants produced there in the last three decades.