Blow for Ford
Page 16
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FORD's light 4 x 4 business took a knock last week when a receiver was appointed at County Commercial Cars and its two subsidiaries, County Commercial Engineers and County Commercial Power Drives following a request to the company's bankers..
Hampshire-based County's main business is the conversion of Ford Transits to four-wheel drive and the manufacture of County equal wheel and small front-wheel drive agricultural tractors. Ford currently sells both County and NAM (Newton Abbot Motors) converted fourwheel drive Transits through its Truck Specialist Dealer network.
Until late 1981, when Ford introduced the option of factoryfitted four-wheel-drive on its then-new Series-10 tractors, a major part of County's business was four-wheel-drive conversions on Ford tractors. The loss of this business must have been a major contributor to County's present problems.
County's receiver, Maurice Withall of the London accountants Thornton Baker, has said that he hopes to find a purchaser to take over the companies as a going concern but already it has been decided that there will be some redundancies among the 234 employees at Fleet and Andover.
While a purchaser is being sought, County will continue to trade.
Earlier this week, representatives from Ford were reported to be meeting the receiver to discuss the implications for the Transit four-wheel drive conversion business.
A Ford spokesman said it was: "too early to assess the longterm effect" and recommended operators of four-wheel-drive County Transits to continue dealing with County in the usual way. He said that Ford was: "confident that our side of the business will not be affected."