BMW has given the go-ahead for a £60m plant at Goodwood, near Chichester, which will make about 1,000 Rolls-Royce cars a year from January 2003.

Karl-Heinz Kalbfell, project director, said the company had reached informal agreements with several buyers, and was testing prototype cars in Scandinavia and elsewhere.

The company has full planning permission for the factory - construction of which will begin on Tuesday - and had signed distribution agreements with Jack Barclay and HR Owen in the UK.

Dieter Udelhoven, Rolls-Royce manufacturing director, said the four-door saloon car would use a special version of BMW's V12 engine, built in Munich but with final assembly and testing at Goodwood.

The luxury cars are expected to sell for up to £200,000.