For weeks, the UK’s motor industry was in suspended animation.

Showrooms are closed. Vast factories, which generally create hundreds of cars daily for sale here and overseas, have been standing idle. However, now the sector is gradually shuddering back to life.

However, Nissan’s factory in Sunderland will stay closed until June, JLR has yet to say when its Castle Bromwich and Halewood plants will reopen, and it’s a similar story with Vauxhall’s other site at Ellesmere Port.

Even though some cars are offered online or through other remote channels, many still find their way to buyers through dealer showrooms and in the united kingdom, those showrooms stay closed.

So it is not surprising that the first factories to reopen are those providing markets overseas. JLR’s Solihull plant makes models which are popular in China where earnings are recovering.

People will only buy cars if they could afford them and with the market expected to go into a steep recession, even that can’t be guaranteed.