Side view of Pinley House, seen from Humber Road

Image: © A J Paxton Taken: 8 Jun 2021

Pinley House and Technical Centre were built in 2006 as the UK headquarters for the French car manufacturer Peugeot. The office complex occupies a wedge-shaped site and consists of two rectangular buildings at an angle to one another and joined by a central wing. They overlook a car park fronting onto Sunbeam Way, while this picture was taken from Humber Road and shows the west wing. https://images1.loopnet.com/d2/W5l0wzgfiN3wkTT7dVxmrCk_zpPYWksjJZwLhAcJKCg/document.pdf The names Humber and Sunbeam evoke a long history of motor manufacture in the Stoke Aldermoor area of Coventry. The local Humber company opened a car factory here in 1908. In 1929 Humber merged with Hillman, which was controlled by Rootes. During the second world war Humber made military vehicles, most famously Field Marshal Montgomery's staff car, 'Old Faithful'. The war years also saw the construction of a larger plant at Ryton outside the city, to which production gradually moved. https://www.ourwarwickshire.org.uk/content/article/the-demise-of-humber The Rootes Group was bought by the US carmaker Chrysler in 1964, which in turn sold it to Peugeot in 1978. Car manufacture ended at Stoke in 2006 and at Ryton in 2007, with production moving to Slovakia. Most of the Stoke site has been redeveloped as housing, though it is overlooked by the Peugeot UK HQ. The consolidation of the automobile industry continued; Peugeot took over Citroen and in 2021 merged with Fiat Chrysler to form a corporation called Stellantis. https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/lifestyle/nostalgia/final-curtain-city-car-production-3118503 https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/what-could-store-peugeot-citroens-19663180

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