Ford commercials are UH designed and no mistakE
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Andy Thorns, in a frank face-to-face interview with lain Sherriff, tells (nearly) al you wanted to know about this company and never had the chance to ask. Mr Thom says 1981 is going to be a good year — for Ford of Britain
HOW MUCH do you know about Ford of Britain?
Is it a large organisation dominated by the Americans, or does Britain run its own affairs?
With so many models in the range what is made where, and where is the market place?
In the cast Ford empire, is there room for after-sales service?
What follows D-Series and when, and has the Transcontinental been the success Ford hoped for?
How much longer will we be in the grip of recession?
Do you see a light ahead?
These were the questions I asked Andy Thorns, truck sales director, Ford Motor, Company Ltd of Britain.
Sherriff: How much influence has Ford of Britain in designing the products you sell?
Thorns: Apart from the Fiesta car and Escort van, which are the responsibility of car engineering and thus split between Britain and Germany, all commercial vehicles from Transit up are designed in the UK.
Transit and A-Series are looked after by a light truck engineering group headed by Ken Moss and the D-Series and Transcontinental are looked after by a heavy truck engineering group headed by Peter Marshall.
Each group has an associated Product Planning team which, with truck marketing, determines overall product strategies and the detail product specifications market by market. Sherriff: Tell me more about your product planning people. For example, how big a force is it?
Thorns: Both Product Planning • and Engineering are located at Truck Operations headquarters Trafford House in Basildon, Essex.
Altogether some 1,100 engineers, planners, draughtsmen and purchase people work at Trafford House. Development is based at our Design and Research Centre at Dunton in Essex, though nearly all complete vehicle testing is carried out at the Boreham Proving Ground near Chelmsford or the Lommel Proving Ground in Belgium. Dunton Houses some 2,000 car and cv personnel engaged in component, system and engine testing. For example, Dunton has 160 engine test cells. Sherriff: How do the split the models between production plants?
Thorns: Each product is made in a separate location, allowing individual plant managers to take responsibility for quality, delivery, etc, of each model line.
The Fiesta van is made only in Valencia in Spain. The plant was purpose designed along the very latest lines to produce 1,100 Fiestas a day and although van production is small — about 7,000 units a year — quality is, as a result of the highest order.
The Escort van is made only at Halewood on Merseyside, and, again represents a relatively small proportion of Halewood's Escort output. In 1980 32,000 Es
cort vans were produced alongside 125,000 Escort cars. Again, because of the volume, quality is excellent.
Transit production is higher than Escort and because it is a much more complex product with literally thousands of derivatives it is made at a Transit only plant in Swaythling, Southampton. Southampton produces up to 340 Transits a day or 75,000 units a year.
Total Transit production including Genk (Belgium), Amsterdam and Azambuja (Portugal) exceeds 140,000 units annually.
A-Series and D-Series are both made at Langley, near Slough, albeit at two different plants sited about one mile apart. The original Langley "A" Plant produces about 40,000 D-series a year and the nearby Langley "B" Plant produces about 5,000 ASeries a year.
Sherriff: Have you invested heavily in recent times?
Thorns: Over the last two years we have invested approaching £20 million at Langley to make it a fully integrated truck plant. Cabs, which used to be made at Southampton and shipped by road, are now built up, painted and trimmed at Langley, resulting in a noticeable improvement in scheduling and quality. Both Southampton and Langley switched over from anodic to cathodic electropaint systems in September 1979 giving customers the benefit of, we believe, the best corrosion protection system yet devised.
Sherriff: What about engine production?
Thorns: All A-Series and the large majority of D-Series use Ford engines and these are shipped from our engine plant in Dagenham. Dagenham produces around 100,000 fourand six-cytinder naturally aspirated and six-cylinder turbo diesels a year as well as 85,000 smaller York diesels that are used in the Transit and A-Series.
Sherriff: We hear claims ma by almost every manufactui that they are market leaders particular sectors of the mark What is your claim?
Thorns: Ford has been t overall commercial vehicle sa leader in the UK for the last ni years. In 1980 we marked sales of 87,638 units represe ing 32.9 per cent of the total m ket. Furthermore, Ford leads t three main sales categorii Fiesta and Escort van togetf lead the light van market w Escort outselling Marina. Tran is the undisputed medium SE ment leader taking 36 per cent all sales and more than 50 r cent of British-built vehicle sail In the heavy segment (over tonnes gross) Ford has be leader for the last four years. C strength is, of course, in t lighter truck, 3.5 to 16.25 tom where we have a clear lead o‘ Leyland and Bedford. In the 16 28.5 tonnes segment we E second to Leyland and it is or in the over 28.5 tonnes class tf we are really outclasse Needless to say, our efforts sr be focused on this segment o‘. the coming year.
Sherriff: These are stro claims, no doubt they will challenged by your compeitc but can we now identify yc market in geographical terms?
Thorns: Ford of Britain is one 15 Ford companies in Euro and British-built vehicles sell all of these markets while Spa ish-built Fiestas and Dutch-bi_ Transcontinentals are sold her Production throughout Euro, reached 186,000 in 1980 ai sales in Western Europe (inclu ing UK) reached 177,000, JL three per cent below the reco set in 1979, giving Ford tl number one place. If we co sider just heavies (over tonnes gross) Ford was numb four behind Daimler Benz, lye,
d RVI but well ahead of GM, ilvo, Leyland and MAN.
We produced 139,000 vehicles 1980 in the UK of which some ,000 were shipped abroad, 3 king us the number one exIter. Over half a million DTies have been built since its :roduction in March 1965, and me 300,000 units, represent) 57 per cent have been ex)rted to more than 1 0 0 untries worldwide.
ierriff: Selling the first vehicle one thing, getting a repeat der is quite different. The ■ erator bases his decision on ree main factors: first-cost; hide performance; and afterles service. How do you fare in the last factor of these three?
Thorns: One of the undoubted keys to our success in Britain has been our dealer body. Of our 134 truck specialist dealers no less than 122 have fully separated or segregated facilities, and total TSD assets exceed £150 million pounds. In the last two years alone, some 18 new purposebuilt facilities have been completed and despite the current economic climate, a further eight new facilities are under way right now.
There is no doubt that with the back-up we can give these dealers, be it in parts supply or in salesman and technician training, they will remain the
powerful professional team in the UK.
Sherriff: I cannot think of any weight category that you don't fill, but surely such wide diversification must adversedly affect the product?
Thorns: Not at all. We have an excellent product line up — the Fiesta is the ideal light van for the service industries, with nippy performance, easy to park and good fuel consumption. The Escort van, which will be launched in the next few weeks, is a brand new design which carries a full half-tonne payload and has the benefit of our brilliant new overhead cam CVH engine.
Transit has become the byword for rugged reliability and today represents better value than ever.
A-Series Transit's big brother faces stiff competition from Transit at 3.5 tonnes gvw and from D-Series at 6 tonnes gvw, but is nonetheless an ideal light truck for the operator who needs a vehicle in that weight range. Sherriff: A model cannot go on forever; Transit has had a good run, ID-Series equally good, but when does it finally go?
Thorns: D-Series has earned a superb reputation for durability and reliability over the years and its sales have increased annually almost without a break. And as I am sure you must be aware, we shall be introducing a replacement for the D-Series in the spring which will, I promise you, be even better.
Sherriff: I've always harboured doubts about the acceptance of Transcontinental. It's one vehicle that I do not encounter too often in 30,000 miles of annual motoring.
Thorns: The top-weight tractive unit segment is the toughest of all in which to establish a reputation, but I think I can honestly claim that our Transcontinental now has the reputation. Operators welcomed the improvement we made in September 1978 and sales have Sherriff: What is the outlook for the industry? You once predicted that start of recovery in April this year; how do you see it now?
Thorns: I dm-1J have to tell you that we are faced with a tough market situation right now. The recession is having a noticeable effect on operators. They are having to take a very critical look at capital expenditure and, with high interest rates, are being forced to reconsider buying patterns, replacement cycles and methods of acquisition.
It is clear that all industry is in a deep depression. Industrial production is down from the peak level of November 1979 by 10 per cent — close to the 12 per cent which followed the midSeventies oil crises. Retail sales activity is also down in spite of intensive marketing activity in the high streets and the media is full of news of lay-offs and falling corporate profits.
All of this creates an atmosphere of gloom, but the economy recovered strongly from the previous recession and there are already positive signs that it will do so again. The inflation rate has started to drop and some major recent wage settlements have come below 10 per cent (our own included). Interest rates have already come down by two per cent and could drop again soon.
These factors will halt the decline in the customer's real disposable income and when this starts to recover we expect to see confidence and economic activity picking up during 1981.
This will nonetheless be a different year for the cv business, which inevitably lags behind the general economy by up to six months.
However, we are confident that with our dealer body in good shape and two important new products coming to the market, 1981 will be a good year for Ford.