Paris - 28 September 2016

1. Pan from Eiffel Tower to British-made cars on display

2. Cars on display

3. Close of Jaguar engraved in air intake

4. Pan of new Jaguar SUV

5. Hanno Kirner talking to reporters

6. SOUNDBITE (English) Hanno Kirner, Executive Director of Corporate Strategy at Jaguar Land Rover Automotive:

"Key to us is we have to maintain free trade with Europe. Key is that we continue to have access to global talent and key for us is that industrial regulation doesn't change. Those are the three points that are really important to us and we're trying to talk to government to explain, we're trying to talk to European governments to explain and we believe it's in the mutual interest of both the UK and European countries to maintain those three key points."

7. Kirner

8. SOUNDBITE (English) Hanno Kirner, Executive Director of Corporate Strategy at Jaguar Land Rover Automotive:

"We cannot stop investing. We are in a long-term industry. We have been investing nearly a billion pounds (1,299,767,000 US dollars) in our engine manufacturing capacity in Wolverhampton. We just continue to grow and so we cannot make our decisions dependent on political singular events so our investment this year - 3.5 billion pounds (4,549,119,400 US dollars) in the UK, the biggest industrial investment - is going to continue what it is and is going to go forward."

9. Aston Martin DB11

10. Aston Martin logo

11. Pan of DB11

12. SOUNDBITE (English) Simon Sproule, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Aston Martin:

"What we've seen in the short term is currency wins with the devaluation of the pound. As an exporter - and we're dominantly an exporter from the UK - that's been a benefit to us. The economic uncertainty is still out there. We're scenario planning. The short-term impact in terms of the British economy does not seem to be so severe. We're seeing a little hesitation in the market but overall, we're pretty much business as usual. But we're planning obviously for when Article 50 is triggered and then we start to get in the discussions."

13. cutaways of Sproule

14. SOUNDBITE (English) Simon Sproule, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Aston Martin:

"No, in fact our investment plans are completely unchanged before Brexit and after Brexit. We announced before Brexit that we are going to invest in a new manufacturing plant in the UK. That's the second manufacturing plant, a plant in Wales that's going to create 750 jobs. Additionally we are going to create another 250 jobs in the West Midlands so that's a thousand direct jobs by the end of the decade just for Aston Martin and those plans are unchanged."

15. Auto industry representatives on stage

16. Representatives on stage with cars

17. Tilt-down from Eiffel Tower to stage with cars

18. Michael Hawes giving interview

19. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Hawes, Chief Executive at Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT):

"The current uncertainties are significant and business never likes uncertainty. The Government has a major challenge now that it's facing. An industry like ours, we want to remain within the single market but we recognise the challenge that's been put forward as a result of the referendum. People voted due to concerns around immigration and the two are not necessarily compatible. Our role is to ensure we reflect our members', the industry's view and that is from a business perspective that being part of the single market is fundamental to the current strength that we enjoy."

20. Sacre Coeur church through window of convention room on first floor of Eiffel Tower

21. Various of crowd attending UK automaker industry event

22. Close of Great Britain campaign logo

23. Wide of Mark Garnier walking onto podium

24. SOUNDBITE (English) Mark Garnier, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for International Trade:

"The British people have spoken and we live in a democracy and we will deliver that democracy. But for people like me, it's incredibly important that when I go back to Westminster, we are delivering these messages which you are giving us. The SMMT are very efficient at engaging with parliamentarians and making sure we understand what's important to you. We know, full well, that you need to be able to secure, in the long term, zero tariff access to the single market. We also know full well that it is incredibly important that you can get engineers when you need them that can either move around your businesses that are pan-European or if you are not, that you can source engineers from other parts of the EU to come in and help your businesses develop and grow stronger."

25. Garnier talking

26. Crowd

This should be a fine time for British carmakers, with sales increasing nicely, but for one major storm front - the impossible-to-predict ramifications of the country's vote to leave the European Union (EU).

As British industry leaders showed off their wares on Wednesday beneath the Eiffel Tower and ahead of the Paris Auto Show, Britain's EU exit, or 'Brexit', remains vexing because it's still not clear exactly how the complex and highly globalised auto trade will be affected.

Michael Hawes, Chief Executive at the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), told those gathered in Paris on Wednesday that the single market was "fundamental to the current strength we're enjoying".

Hawes added that the British government now has "a major challenge" to balance the wishes of the British public with the continued success of the auto industry.

The sector has attracted record investment in recent years of 3.5 billion pounds (USD 4,549,119,400), but auto industry representatives like Hanno Kirner, Executive Director of Corporate Strategy at Jaguar Land Rover Automotive, said the key to ongoing success "is we have to maintain free trade with Europe".

Many expect Brexit to be disruptive, and to raise costs for companies, but the hard talk negotiations between Britain and the EU on the crucial issues of tariffs and the free movement of labour are still months away - and will possibly take years to resolve.

That means years of uncertainty over the cost of building cars in Britain and the ease of exporting them to other EU countries.

It will also create doubts about how difficult it will become to import vital car parts from other EU countries, to say nothing of the restrictions likely to be put in place on the free movement of skilled workers needed to assemble vehicles.

This is the main reason investment has slowed in an industry that was enjoying a good run of health - production grew more than 12 per cent in the first half of 2016 compared to the year before.

While the drop in the pound since the June vote to leave the EU has helped car exports from Britain, overall uncertainties are casting a shadow over the future.

"We had a short-term gain but we are very mindful of the long term," Simon Sproule, marketing director for Aston Martin, said in Paris.

He said the company's investment plan remains "completely unchanged since Brexit," at least for now. And it's focusing on non-European markets, too.

Carmakers do not know how much production costs will surge, and whether the increases, possibly in the form of higher tariffs, will end Britain's attractiveness as a platform for building cars and getting them into the European market.

There was one possible sign of a continental divide: while international carmakers are unveiling a slew of new models at the Paris Car Show this week, Land Rover chose to stay on the other side of the English Channel to demonstrate its latest model Wednesday.

Company officials played down any political message behind the decision. But with the industry converging on Paris this week, whether to consider British manufacturers part of the European market is a question on many minds.