The first Ford factory outside America opened in a former tramcar works at Trafford Park, Manchester, in October 1911, assembling Model Ts from imported components.
Apart from local coachwork in 1912-1914 and the use (at extra cost!) of a 14.9 hp engine built at Ford's Cork plant, instead of the 24 hp engine, in the Model A from 1928, cars followed the American pattern until February 1932, when the first European small Ford, the Dearborn-designed 8 hp Model Y of 933cc, was exhibited at Ford's Albert Hall Show after a gestation period of only five months. Improved, it entered production at Ford's new Dagenham factory the following August, and formed the basis of Ford light car design until the 1950s.
It was also built at Asnières (Paris), Barcelona and Cologne. In 1934 came the 1172cc Model C Ten, ancestor of the Prefect (1939-1953). The Mode1 Y became the first and only £100 saloon car in September 1935; its 1940 development, the Anglia, was produced until 1953, when its 10 hp export variant became the Popular, built in the former Doncaster Briggs Bodies plant until 1959. Dagenham built its first 30 hp V8 in 1935, soon also offering a 22 hp version similar to the Matford, Alsace.
This provided the coachwork for the 1947 52 30 hp Pilot V8. The first unit-constructed ohv Fords with ifs, the Consul four and Zephyr six, appeared in 1950, with convertible models and a deluxe six, the Zephyr Zodiac, available from 1953. That year unit-constructed 1172cc side-valve 100 E models of the Anglia and Prefect appeared. In 1959 came the lively 105E Anglia, with an ohv 997cc engine and reverse-rake rear window. Transitional models, the 1961 Consul Classic and Capri, heralded the MkI Cortina of 1962, which sold over a million before it was replaced in 1967 by a Mkll version.
There was even a Lotus version of the Mkl and MkIl Cortinas. The Corsair line adopted V4 engines in 1965, followed by a V4 and V6 Zephyr and Zodiac MkIVs from spring 1966.
In 1966-70, Fords Advanced Vehicle Operations at Slough built 101 examples of the spectacular road-racing GT4O. The Halewood, Merseyside, plant introduced the Escort in 1968 to replace the Anglia: 1100cc and 1300cc engines were standard, with a 1558cc twin-cam engine fitted to the sporting version.
Consul (1961)
The sporting Escort, in both MkI and Mkll versions, became the most successful individual model in the history of motor sport, its victory in the 1970 World C up Rally giving birth to the 1600cc pushrod-engined Mexico.
