Five Trinity Mirror regional dailies have launched a new fight to safeguard the future of Jaguar Land Rover.

The Birmingham Post and Mail, Coventry Telegraph and Liverpool Daily Post and Echo are pleading with Chancellor Alistair Darling and Business Secretary Peter Mandelson to sign off a £1bn loan aimed at keeping the firm afloat.

An e-petition has been submitted to the Downing Street website by Birmingham Post editor Marc Reeves and a Facebook campaign group has already attracted over 170 members.

The company directly employs around 16,000 people at plants in the West Midlands and Merseyside while a further 60,000 people are employed in supply chain and car showroom jobs across the UK.

JLR, now owned by Indian firm Tata after a £1.15bn sale last summer, is seeking a commercial loan, rather than a financial bail out, which it intends to repay by 2011.

How today's front pages look on the five papers

In an editorial comment piece, Birmingham Mail editor Steve Dyson said: "It has announced 600 voluntary redundancies and 850 agency job losses, has cut night shifts at Land Rover and introduced four-day weeks on the Jaguar XJ and XK lines.

"It has even offered production staff three-month sabbaticals on 80pc pay.

"But these measures may not be enough as the worst sales climate to hit the car sector for 40 years exacts a brutal toll.

"JLR is a well-run, successful firm, whose research and development expenditure is the seventh largest in the UK.

"It made an operating profit of £310m in the first half of 2008. This is a special request from a special company in unprecedented economic circumstances."