New figures from the SMMT show that the rise came despite a 2.8% decline in September output to 137,068 units, due to planned re-tooling for model changes.

The figures also show that production for the home market rose 17.7% in September as the UK new car market continues to thrive, although export market production dropped 8.1%. Year to date, home production is up 2.9% but export production is down 0.1%.

‘It is testament to the strength of the automotive industry that it continues to break records – yielding the best year-to-date performance for six years and comfortably surpassing one million units,’ said Mike Hawes, SMMT chief executive. ‘The continued investment by the sector into new models means the September figures took a slight dip as some plants underwent re-tooling but it is these same new models which will help increase production volumes in the future.’

John Leech, KPMG’s UK head of automotive, said of the figures: 'The growth in new car production of 0.6 per cent for the first 9 months of the year was a strong performance in light of the continued underperformance of the European car market and in part reflects that half of cars exported by the UK are to countries outside the EU.  No other EU country exports such a high proportion of its cars outside of the EU.  In the last two months, manufacturers have extended shutdowns for retooling and refurbishment which has also allowed some rebalancing of vehicle stocks which should help their profitability in the coming months. We expect that UK vehicle production will grow more strongly in the coming months and years, growing by 20 per cent to 2 million vehicles in 2017.'