Ford of Britain

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ford Motor Company

logo
legal form Limited
founding 1909 as Ford Motor Company (England) Ltd.
resolution 1967
Seat Brentwood (Essex) , United Kingdom
management
  • Nigel Sharp (CEO)
  • Joe Greenwell (Chairman of the Board)
Branch Automobile manufacturer
Website www.ford.co.uk

Ford Pilot (1950)
Ford Anglia E494A (1953)
Ford Zephyr Six (1954)
Ford Anglia 100E (1960)
Ford Anglia 123E (1959) in Wales
Ford Cortina GT Mk I (1966) with side stripes of the Lotus Cortina
Ford Cortina Mk IV (1978): with effect from 1976, Cortina and Taunus were mainly identical

The Ford Motor Company Limited was a British automobile manufacturer from 1909 to 1967, first in London and then in Dagenham (Essex) and Brentwood (Essex) was established. The company was the British branch of the US automobile manufacturer Ford Motor Company . She was responsible for the manufacture and sale of Ford products in the United Kingdom and initially in Ireland . In 1967 it was merged with Ford Germany to become Ford of Europe .

history

1903-1918

The first Ford automobiles, three Model A , were introduced to the UK in 1903 and the first Ford dealership opened in Southampton in 1910 . In 1909 the Ford Motor Company (England) Ltd. on Shaftesbury Ave. Founded 55 in London under the leadership of Percival Perry . In 1911, an assembly plant was opened in an old tram factory in Trafford Park, Manchester , where the Model T was assembled by 60 workers . At the same time the company was renamed Henry Ford & Son Ltd. renamed. This was the first Ford factory outside the United States. Initially the cars were assembled on imported chassis, with the bodies coming from local suppliers, but in 1914 the first assembly line was installed in Britain, building 21 cars per hour. 6,000 vehicles were built in 1913 and the Model T became the best-selling car in Great Britain with a 30% market share. After World War I , the Trafford Park plant expanded and in 1919 41% of all cars registered in the UK were Ford.

In 1917 a plant was added in Cork , Ireland, which was originally intended for the construction of tractors, but where cars were also assembled from 1921. This was the first factory building built by Ford in Europe. In 1984 this plant closed.

1918-1939

Although the Trafford Park plant was served by the Manchester Ship Canal , Ford decided that access to a deep water port was essential and in 1923 the decision was made to move to a new plant in Dagenham on the Thames , east of London. Construction began in 1929 and in October 1931 what was then the largest automobile assembly plant in Europe was opened, in which the car model A and the truck model AA were built. This was accompanied by another name change of the company to Ford Motor Company Ltd. It was at the height of the Great Depression and the Model A was too expensive in taxes and maintenance for many British, so that only a few copies could be sold. In the first three months there were only five of them. So the company urgently needed a smaller model, which appeared in model year 1933 as Model Y with 933 cm³ displacement. This car was much better suited to the economic situation at the time and became the first car in Great Britain in 1935 to sell for £ 100 was offered. From 1932 to 1937 over 157,000 were made in Dagenham and Cork and at peak times 41% of all cars sold in this segment of the UK were Ford Model Y. In 1939 tractor production was relocated to Dagenham.

1940-1944

During the Second World War , 360,000 vehicles were built in Dagenham and 34,000 Rolls-Royce Merlin aircraft engines were built under Ford control in a new factory in Urmston (Greater Manchester) .

1945-1967

After the Second World War, civil production was resumed. In 1946 115,000 vehicles were built in Dagenham and the factories in London- Walthamstow and Langley (Buckinghamshire) (later to Berkshire) were built. In 1953 Briggs Motor Bodies was bought, which allowed the company better access to its suppliers and was connected with the purchase of further plants in Doncaster (Yorkshire) , Southampton, Croydon (London) and Romford . In 1953 Ford of Britain had 40,000 employees.

Until 1960 the Ford Motor Company (England) Ltd. a company listed on the stock corporation, but this year joined Ford USA, the minority shareholders ( " squeeze-out ") so that Ford of Britain has been a 100% subsidiary of Ford US.

In 1962, Ford opened a factory near Halewood for the new Anglia . In 2000 Ford gave up this plant with the last Escort , since 2001 the Jaguar X-Type has been built there.

Another new factory was opened in Basildon in 1964, producing tractors , and in 1965 another factory in Swansea for chassis components and axles was added.

commercial vehicles

Ford manufactured a number of commercial vehicles starting with the TT 1917 model . From 1933 to 1939 these vans were called Fordson , from 1939 to 1957 Fordson Thames or Ford Thames and from 1957 to 1965 only Thames . From 1965 they returned to the name Ford . After the Trafford Park plant closed, most of the delivery vans were built in Langley. In 1986 the entire division was sold to the Italian Iveco Group. This is how Iveco-Ford came into being , in which Ford held a 48% stake. The Ford brand name was soon abandoned in Europe for heavy commercial vehicles. Iveco closed the Langley plant in 1997.

Models

Car

commercial vehicles

(1 cwt = 50.8 kg)

Supercar

Production numbers

A total of 24,321,719 vehicles were built between 1903 and 2002 . This number includes passenger cars , passenger-derived vans, and commercial vehicles.

Below is a list of car production.

year Production number
1911 1,485
1912 2,942
1913 6.138
1914 8,242
1915 8,905
1916 9,037
1917 4,268
1918 2,527
1919 8,086
1920 25,666
1921 11,603
1922 11.091
1923 11,507
1924 8,919
1925 5,086
1926 4,510
1927 1,817
1928 2,896
1929 7.120
1930 4,495
1931 5
1932 11,920
1933 36,424
1934 34,486
1935 48,551
1936 74,988
1937 77,830
1938 59,935
1939 48,031
1940 11,286
1941 2,885
1942 5,162
1943 2,647
1944 1,165
1945 2,330
1946 33,945
1947 44,849
1948 66,560
1949 79,448
1950 99,478
1951 94,268
1952 93,858
1953 160,575
1954 210.153
1955 241.502
1956 227.209
1957 241,950
1958 289,922
1959 319.454
1960 407,548
1961 326,927
1962 368,459
1963 504.093
1964 526.041
1965 505.168
1966 465.309
1967 440.712
1968 498.100
1969 541.123
1970 462,893
1971 368,482
1972 537.722
1973 453,448
1974 383.724
1975 333,557
1976 387,309
1977 421,769
1978 327,398
1979 408.726
1980 342,756
1981 342.176
1982 307,640
1983 318,686
1984 273,767
1985 317,689
1986 346.266
1987 383.429
1988 374,462
1989 382,595
1990 329,604
1991 339.182
1992 302.990
1993 261,546
1994 269.050
1995 274,367
1996 318,250
1997 302.406
1998 298,629
1999 255.125
2000 155.094
2001 73.180
2002 12,903
total 18,017,816

Note: The individual numbers add up to 18,017,456.

literature

  • David Culshaw, Peter Horrobin: The Complete Catalog of British Cars 1895-1975. Veloce Publishing PLC, Dorchester, 1997; ISBN 1-874105-93-6 .
  • Jonathan Wood: The British Motor Industry. Shire Publications Ltd, 2010; ISBN 0-7478-0768-X .
  • GN Georgano (Ed.), G. Marshall Naul: Complete Encyclopedia of Commercial Vehicles. MBI Motor Books International, Osceola WI, 1979; ISBN 0-87341-024-6 .
  • Halwart Schrader , Jan P. Norbye: The truck lexicon. All brands 1900 to today. Schrader Verlag, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-613-01837-3 .
  • lastauto omnibus commercial vehicle catalog 1980. All commercial vehicles, trailers, bodies, crane trucks, loading aids in Germany United Motor-Verlage Stuttgart 18372.

Web links

Commons : Ford of Britain  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Commons : Category: Ford  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ History of Ford Europe (English) ( Memento of the original from August 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.fordeurope.net
  2. ↑ Maurice A. Smith (Ed.): American Paentage . Autocar, issue 128 (nr 3766) of April 18, 1968. p. 64.
  3. ^ A b Hubert Bonin, Yannick Lang, Steven Tolliday: Ford. The European History 1903-2003. Plage, 2003, ISBN 2914369069 .