BABY Jag was seen as the saviour for Halewood’s car plant when it rolled off production lines in June, 2001.

But the dream addition to the luxury car market which targeted the middle market in a bid to wrest sales from rivals BMW and Audi failed to live up to sales forecasts, and news of its early demise came as no surprise to many in the car industry.

Halewood was facing closure in 1997 when then owner Ford announced the end of Escort production at the plant, which was seen by many as a hotbed of industrial unrest.

However, a vigorous campaign by MPs, unions and the local press to save the site achieved a turnaround that many thought was just a pipedream when Ford agreed to launch its new Jaguar model on Merseyside.

But the company’s confidence was repaid as the workforce embarked on a learning curve that transformed the site into the most efficient and most productive in Ford’s entire global network.

On a recent visit to the Knowsley plant, Jaguar chief executive David Smith paid tribute to the workforce, saying the standard of X-Types being produced was the highest quality the company had ever achieved.

But his words of praise were too late to save the model from its fate, six months ahead of its planned cessation.