The Foden family
Page 32
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In contrast to the Leyland story (see p41), formed from the merger of two engineering firms, Foden’s history started off as a single family company before splitting into two. Long story short – father Edwin started an engineering firm in Sandbach in 1856, becoming a major manufacturer of steam trucks. Fast forward to 1930, and younger son Edwin Richard saw the firm’s future with those newfangled diesels, so split from brother William to set up ERF. William continued running Foden.
The two rival firms went on to epitomise the classic British “kit truck” philosophy of adding proprietary drivelines to in-house chassis and cabs, although Foden dabbled for many years with its own design of two-stroke diesels. They continued with varying fortunes until the turn of the century when both met similar fates. Foden, owned by Paccar since 1980, was gradually absorbed into the DAF range until in 2006 it disappeared up its own stainless steel exhaust stack. In a saga of takeovers and litigation worthy of a book in itself, ERF found itself owned by Western Star and Freightliner, until 2007 when it finally suffered a similar end to Foden at the hands of MAN.