 | Parts of this article (those related to the article still seems to be written from the 2010 perspective. There's nothing about their commercial vehicle operations (specifically the Transit van), their re-focus on engines and transmissions only, or any history since that happened, or their 2019 consolidation) need to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(June 2019) |
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| Ford of Britain | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Automotive |
| Predecessor | Briggs Motor Bodies  |
| Founded | 1909; 116 years ago (1909), in Ford Motor Company Ltd.[note 1] |
| Founder | Henry Ford |
| Headquarters | Laindon, Essex England |
Key people | Lisa Brankin (Managing Director) |
| Products | Engines and transmissions |
| Services | Financial services |
Number of employees | Approximately 8,500[1] |
| Parent | Ford of Europe |
| Subsidiaries | TrustFord |
| Website | ford.co.uk |
Ford Motor Company Limited,[2][note 1]trading asFord of Britain, is a British wholly ownedsubsidiary of Ford Technologies Limited (formerly called Blue Oval Holdings), itself a subsidiary of Ford International Capital LLC, which is a subsidiary ofFord Motor Company.[3] Its business started in 1909 and has its registered office inLaindon, Essex.[4] It adopted the name of Ford of Britain in 1960.[5]
Ford of Britain operates two major manufacturing sites in the UK,in Dagenham (diesel engine production) andHalewood (transmissions).[6] It also operatesa large research and development facility inDunton, Essex, which employ around 35,000 people in product development, manufacturing, sales and marketing, and service roles.[6][7]
In 2010, Ford had been the UK's biggest-selling car and commercial vehicle brand for 34 and 45 consecutive years respectively.[8]
The first Ford cars, threeModel As, were imported into the UK in 1903, and the first dealership opened inSouthampton in November 1910.[9] In 1909 the Ford Motor Company (England) Limited was established under the chairmanship ofPercival Perry,[10] opening an office at 55Shaftesbury Avenue, London, in 1909.[1]
Anassembly plant in an old tram factory inTrafford Park, Manchester, was opened in 1911, employing 60 people to make theModel T, and the company was re-registered as Henry Ford & Son, Ltd.[citation needed] This was the first Ford factory outside North America. At first, the cars were assembled from imported chassis and mechanical parts, with bodies sourced locally. Six thousand cars were produced in 1913, and the Model T became the country's biggest selling car, with 30% of the market. In 1914, Britain's first moving assembly line for car production started, with 21 cars an hour being built. After theFirst World War, the Trafford Park plant was extended, and in 1919, 41% of British registered cars were Fords.
In 1917, a plant opened inCork, Ireland, initially for tractor manufacture, but from 1921 cars were built there as well. This factory was the first to be purpose-built by Ford in Europe. The company of Henry Ford and Son Limited—Fordson—was officially incorporated on 17 April 1917, starting its life on the site of an old Cork racecourse. Its first registered office was at 36South Mall, Cork.
Although the Manchester plant was served by theManchester Ship Canal, Ford decided that access to a deep water port was required, and in 1923 a new site was chosen by theRiver Thames atDagenham, east of London.
In December 1928 Ford (since 1924 entirely owned by Henry Ford, his wife and their son Edsel) announced in London that it had formed a new company, Ford Motor Company Limited,[11] with three US directors (Henry Ford,Edsel Ford,Charles E. Sorensen) and four British directors (Sir Percy Perry,Roland Kitson, SirJohn T Davies andLord Illingworth), with a capital of £7 million. This company acquired all Ford's European and Middle Eastern business[note 2] in exchange for 60% of its capital. The balance of 40% of the capital of the new Ford Motor Company Limited, 2.8 million shares of £1 each, was now available for public subscription. These shares were heavily over-subscribed. There was considerable investing interest from America, as US investors had had no previous opportunity of investing in a Henry Ford business.
The new chairman, Sir Percival Perry, had been, and now was again, central to the development of Ford in Europe. Perry's association with Henry Ford dated from 1905, when Perry became a shareholder of Ford's first British agency, but the very first link between them was earlier, in 1903. The two men first met in 1906 in Detroit. From Britain, Perry envisioned Ford making vehicles outside USA and selling them across the British Empire and Europe. He raced the company's cars, organised a chain of exclusive dealers, and superintended the Trafford Park assembly plant. In 1919, Henry Ford chose to run operations from Detroit, but Perry was determined to run all European business himself. Perry resigned in May 1919.[12]
His American managers having failed him, Henry Ford offered Perry the chairmanship of this new Ford Motor Company Limited in 1928.
At the first meeting of shareholders in London on 6 March 1929,[13] Perry reported "during the first three months of our first year we and our associated companies in Europe have delivered upwards of 50,000 Model 'A' vehicles into the hands of satisfied owners. The improved Fordson tractor is not yet in production but it is hoped to deliver the first tractors completely manufactured at our Cork works within the next month."
Construction started at Dagenham in 1929, and, in October 1931, Britain's andEurope's largest car plant opened, producing theFord Model AA truck and Model A car. This was at the height of theGreat Depression, and the Model A was too expensive to tax and run in Britain; very few were sold: only five in the first three months. A smaller car was urgently needed, and this came in 1932 with the 933 ccModel Y,[14] a car much more suited to the market, becoming in 1935 Britain's first £100 car (equivalent to £8,768 in 2023). This was Ford's first car specifically designed for sale outside North America. Between 1932 and 1937, over 157,000 were made at Dagenham and Cork, and at its peak it captured 41% of its market sector.
In 1938, Ford's Cork factory hit an important milestone, producing its 25,000th vehicle since becoming an assembly plant in 1932. In all, 73,000 cars, trucks and tractors had been built at Cork up to that time.
The original 1928 plan was for Canada, having the benefit ofImperial Preferencetariffs, to manufacture components for Ford assembly plants in the British Empire. Dagenham was to do, and did, the same for assembly plants in Europe, but in 1932, mired in the financial depression, both France and Germany announced their intention to impose heavy new tariffs on imported components. In France, urgent arrangements were made withMathis for their plant to be leased by a joint-venture to be known asMatford and devoted to the full manufacture of Ford or Matford products.
More capital was required. There were consequential exchanges in shareholdings between Dagenham and Dearborn and other shareholders.
As an indication of the British and Irish company's sense of independence, in 1938 Henry Ford andHarry Ferguson came to 'agentlemen's agreement', whereby Ford would manufacturetractors designed by Ferguson, using the "Ferguson System". Production commenced in the USA in June 1939, and the product was outstandingly successful, but Henry Ford was unable to persuade Ford in Britain to manufacture the Ford-Ferguson, though they did sell the US-made tractors. In 1945 Ferguson arranged British production withStandard Motor Company. Harry Ferguson sued US Ford for illegal use of his patents, asking for compensation of £90 million;[15][16] this was settled out of court in 1952.[17]Charles E. Sorensen's autobiography—he was a director of this company—described Ferguson so unfavourably that his UK publishers were obliged to scrap all copies and pay costs; Sorensen made a public apology.[18]
During theSecond World War, the Dagenham plant turned out 360,000 vehicles, and a new factory inTrafford Park, Manchester, made 34,000Rolls-Royce Merlin engines.
After World War II, civilian production resumed. Dagenham made 115,000 vehicles in 1946, and factories inWalthamstow in Essex (later London) andLangley in Buckinghamshire (laterBerkshire) were acquired. The millionth vehicle made since the Dagenham factory started production in October 1931 rolled from the assembly line on 27 August 1946, a creamFord Prefect 10 hp saloon.[19][20]
Henry Ford resigned in 1945 in favour of grandson Henry Ford II, and died in April 1947. Perry, founder-chairman of Ford Motor Company Limited and each of the Ford Group's European subsidiaries, retired in 1948.[21] In 1950, Ford's controlling interests in the European businesses were sold to Ford Dearborn.[22] In 1953, following the death of its Detroit founder, Briggs Motor Bodies, whose parent provided bodies to Ford America, was purchased, giving the company more control of its supplies and so acquiring plants atDoncaster,Southampton,Croydon andRomford. By 1953, Ford of Britain directly employed 40,000 people.
Until 1960, Ford Motor Company Limited remained a publicly quoted company, its shares freely listed on British exchanges, with more than 10,000 stockholders. The Ford Motor Company of Dearborn Michigan then held just 54% of its shares.[23] That year, after eighteen months of rumour and denial, theUS company offered to buy out the other shareholders. The offer was accepted, and Ford completed payment for the other 46% of Ford Motor Company Limited at the end of January 1961.[24] Ford of Britain, properly Ford Motor Company Limited, then became a wholly owned Ford subsidiary.[25]
In 1962, Ford openeda factory atHalewood,Liverpool, to make the Anglia. This ceased to be a Ford plant (although remained under Ford ownership) when the last Escort came off the production line in 2000, and was then converted to make theJaguar X-Type in 2001, and latterly theLand Rover Freelander. Halewood was included in the sale ofJaguar andLand Rover toTata Motors in 2008, although Ford retained ownership of its transmission works.
Another new factory opened atBasildon in 1964 to make tractors, and, in 1965, a further plant was acquired atCrymlyn Burrows,Swansea, to make chassis components and axles.
The Cork factory celebrated the 50-year anniversary in 1967. As part of that landmark event, a £2 million investment programme was announced to rebuild, re-equip and modernise the assembly plant. As a result, the plant was to become the largest and most modern factory of its kind in Ireland. In the same year, Ford of Europe was formed with Henry Ford and Son Limited. It was an important partnership from the start. Another £2 million was spent on assembly facilities and operations, to ensure that Cork production equalled the highest European standards of quality. By 1977, the total area of the plant was well over 450,000 square feet.
The rationalisation plan put in place meant that, in 1972, the Cork plant became a two-car plant that was producing the two best selling cars in Ireland: the Escort and Cortina. Between them, these two models were accounting for 75% of Ford sales in Ireland at the time. The Irish company was also exporting around 4,000 cars (mostly Escorts) to Britain. The Cork plant closed in 1984.[26]
The Ford sewing machinists strike of 1968 was a landmark labour-relations dispute in the United Kingdom. The strike began on 7 June 1968, when women sewing machinists atDagenham walked out and were later followed by the machinists atHalewood Body & Assembly plant. The women were responsible for car seat covers, and their strike eventually led to a complete halt to all car production. The Dagenham sewing machinists walked out when, as part of a regrading exercise, they were informed that their jobs were graded in Category B (less-skilled production jobs), instead of Category C (more-skilled production jobs), and that they would be paid 15% less than the full B rate received by men.
The strike ended three weeks after it began, following the intervention ofBarbara Castle, theSecretary of State for Employment and Productivity. The deal brokered immediately increased their rate of pay to 8% below that of men, rising to the full category B rate the following year.
Ford produced a range of commercial vehicles, starting with theModel TT in 1917. From 1933 to 1939 these were badgedFordson; this changed toFordson Thames until 1957, after which it became plainThames. From 1965 they reverted to Ford. After the closure of the Trafford Park factory, most of the larger commercials were built at Langley. The truck operation was sold to theIveco group of Italy in 1986, and became Iveco Ford (48% owned by Ford). The Langley plant closed in 1997.
At midday on Wednesday, 26 July 2013, Ford ended more than 100 years of vehicle manufacturing in the UK, with end of assemblingTransit vans, by moving production of the next generation Transit to theFord Otosan plant inTurkey.Ford Southampton plant built 28,000 vans, barely a third of its 2007 production.
Ford of Europe was created in 1967 by the merging of the businesses of Ford Motor Company Limited andFord-Werke GmbH.
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Note – cwt is the abbreviation of hundredweight (112 pounds or 1/20 ton)
The Story of Ford – The fifth largest automaker in the world and manufacturer of some of the best-selling cars of all time
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