Ford Germany
Encyclopedia
Ford Motor Co. AG
Until 27 January 1950 all Ford's European operations other than in the USSR were run from Dagenham and owned by Ford Motor Company LimitedFord of Britain
Ford of Britain is a British wholly owned subsidiary of Ford of Europe, a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company. Its business started in 1909 and has its registered office in Brentwood, Essex...
, Dearborn
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
's 55% owned subsidiary. In Ford Motor Company Limited's published reports to their British shareholders Germany and the other Ford European interests were referred to as 'the associated companies'.These associate companies had been established in order to allow for substantial holdings by local shareholders. On the outbreak of the second world war those shares in Ford Motor Company AG not belonging to German shareholders were placed under the control of the German Commissioner for dealing with enemy property.
The earliest presence of the Ford Motor Company in Germany was a parts operation set up in Hamburg in 1912. It was not until 1925 that an assembly plant was constructed in Berlin where Model T
Ford Model T
The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company from September 1908 to May 1927...
trucks were made from imported parts. Cars followed in 1926.
In 1931 production moved to a new plant in Cologne on a site made available by the mayor of the city, Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was a German statesman. He was the chancellor of the West Germany from 1949 to 1963. He is widely recognised as a person who led his country from the ruins of World War II to a powerful and prosperous nation that had forged close relations with old enemies France,...
and from that time an increasing proportion of the Ford vehicles sold in Germany were also made in Germany rather than being imported. The first car off the new production line was the Model A joined in 1932 by the Model B
Ford Model B (1932)
The Model B was a Ford automobile with production starting with model year 1932 and ending with 1934. It was a much updated version of the Model A and was replaced by the 1935 Ford Model 48...
.
Small car manufacture started in 1933 with the Ford Köln
Ford Köln
Not to be confused with the Ford FK 1000 from 1953 which was also named Ford Köln.----Ford Köln is an automobile from the Cologne, Germany plant of the Ford Motor Company that was in production from 1932 to 1935. It was the German version of the Ford Model Y. The name came from the German name for...
, a year after its British launch as the Model Y
Ford Model Y
The Model Y is the first Ford specifically designed for markets outside the United States of America, replacing the Model A in Europe. The car was powered by a 933 cc, 8 hp Ford Sidevalve engine, and was in production in England from 1932 until September 1937, in France from 1932 to 1934...
, but it did not have the same impact in Germany as it did in Britain as it was undercut in price by the small Opel
Opel
Adam Opel AG, generally shortened to Opel, is a German automobile company founded by Adam Opel in 1862. Opel has been building automobiles since 1899, and became an Aktiengesellschaft in 1929...
.
The Ford Rheinland
Ford Rheinland
The Ford Rheinland was an automobile built by Ford of Germany that was in production from 1933 to 1936.The name comes from the German region of the Rhineland. In total 5575 of them were made...
was a unique model for the German market made by fitting a four-cylinder 3285 cc engine into a Model B V-8 chassis but most products continued to be Detroit designs albeit with local names. The Eifel
Ford Eifel
Ford Eifel was a car manufactured by Ford Germany and Ford Hungary between 1935 and 1940. It was derived from the Ford Model C platform, and is related to the contemporary Ford Anglia and Ford Prefect....
was the German version of the 10 hp sold in Britain as the Model C
Ford Model C Ten
The Ford Model C Ten was a car from Ford built in the United Kingdom between 1934 and 1937. The car was also assembled in Spain between 1934 and 1936...
and this was joined in 1939 by the first
Ford Taunus G93A
The Ford Taunus G93A was a small family car produced by Ford of Germany between 1939 and 1942 in succession to the Ford Eifel. In 1948 the car reappeared as the Ford Taunus G73A, and the G73A remained in production until 1952...
of the long running Taunus
Ford Taunus
The Ford Taunus is a family car sold by Ford in Germany and other countries. Models from 1970 onward were similar to the Ford Cortina in the United Kingdom...
range.
Ford-Werke AG later Ford-Werke GmbH
The company was re-organised in 1939 and changed its name to Ford-Werke. With the outbreak of war, car production continued at first with the TaunusFord Taunus
The Ford Taunus is a family car sold by Ford in Germany and other countries. Models from 1970 onward were similar to the Ford Cortina in the United Kingdom...
being made until 1942 but increasingly military production took over, building trucks and armed personnel carriers for the German armed forces. Most notably was the V3000 V-8 truck series. In spite of the heavy bombing of Cologne, the factory got off relatively lightly and after the war production was able to restart in May 1945 with truck manufacture, the US government having paid $1.1 million in consideration of bombing damage. Car making restarted in late 1948 with the Taunus. Henry Ford II visited the factory in 1948 during his visit to Germany when he was considering a purchase of Volkswagen
Volkswagen
Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer and is the original and biggest-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group, which now also owns the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, and Škoda marques and the truck manufacturer Scania.Volkswagen means "people's car" in German, where it is...
, with which he did not ultimately proceed.
In 1952 a new Taunus
Ford Taunus P1
The Ford Taunus 12 M was a small family saloon/sedan produced by Ford of Germany from 1952. Between 1955 and 1959 it was joined by the larger-engined Ford Taunus 15M...
appeared and this had much in common with the British Ford products and was a great success enabling record production figures to be reached. The company was now being run by Ehrhart Vitger and he spent time recruiting new dealers to replace those lost in East Germany but the company continued to rank third in sales in Germany behind VW and Opel.
Ford first began to integrate the operations of its European subsidiaries in 1965 with the launch of the original Ford Transit
Ford Transit
The Ford Transit is a range of panel vans, minibuses, and pickup trucks, produced by the Ford Motor Company in Europe.The Transit has been the best-selling light commercial vehicle in Europe for 40 years, and in some countries the term "Transit" has passed into common usage as a generic term...
panel van, which was a joint development between Ford of Britain and Ford-Werke, however it was the Ford Escort in 1968 that truly marked the end of unique models in European countries and followed the creation of Ford Europe
Ford Europe
-History:Ford of Europe was founded in 1967 on the merger of the British and German divisions of the Ford Motor Company. The original Ford Transit range of panel vans launched in 1965, was the first formal co-operation between the two entities, simultaneously developed to replace the German Ford...
in 1967 from the assets of the British and German operations but the corporate entities continue.
General Motors
General Motors
General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...
would later follow Ford's lead in the 1970s by integrating its Opel and Vauxhall
Vauxhall
-Demography:Many Vauxhall residents live in social housing. There are several gentrified areas, and areas of terraced townhouses on streets such as Fentiman Road and Heyford Avenue have higher property values in the private market, however by far the most common type of housing stock within...
subsidiaries into GM Europe
GM Europe
General Motors Europe AG was responsible for the operation of General Motors Corporation businesses in Europe. The subsidiary was established by GM in 1986 and operated 14 production and assembly facilities in 9 countries, and employed around 54,500 people...
.
Aston Martin Engine Plant
In October 2004, when Aston MartinAston Martin
Aston Martin Lagonda Limited is a British manufacturer of luxury sports cars, based in Gaydon, Warwickshire. The company name is derived from the name of one of the company's founders, Lionel Martin, and from the Aston Hill speed hillclimb near Aston Clinton in Buckinghamshire...
was a wholly owned subsidiary of Ford, the company set up a dedicated 12500 square metres (14,949.9 sq yd) engine production plant within the Ford Niehl plant, with capacity to produce up to 5000 engines a year by 100 specially trained personnel. Like traditional Aston Martin engine production in Newport Pagnell
Newport Pagnell
Newport Pagnell is a town in the Borough of Milton Keynes , England. It is separated by the M1 motorway from Milton Keynes itself, though part of the same urban area...
, assembly of each unit is entrusted to a single technician from a pool of 30, with V8 and V12 variants assembled in under 20 hours. By bringing engine production back to within the company, the promise was that Aston Martin would be able to produce small runs of higher performance variants engines.
See also
- Henry FordHenry FordHenry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...
- Ford of Europe
- Ford Motor CompanyFord Motor CompanyFord Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
- Ford Motor Company LimitedFord of BritainFord of Britain is a British wholly owned subsidiary of Ford of Europe, a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company. Its business started in 1909 and has its registered office in Brentwood, Essex...