All Transits to be built at Southampton
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• Ford last Friday announced a £5-tm expansion programme for its Southampton plant, which will increase the facility's size by 400,000 sq ft and could mean jobs for up to 400 more people.
An important part of the project includes the transfer from the Ford plant at Langley, Bucks, of entire final assembly operations for the range of Transit medium commercial vehicles. When volume production begins in late summer next year, it will mark the first time that complete Transits have been built in Southampton since Transit body manufacture began there in 1965. , Expansion at Southampton fdllows the Government's recent decision to route M27 motorway away from the factory—rather than through the middle of the premises, as had been planned since the late 1940s.
Transferring Transit production to Southampton has given Ford the opportunity to plan a modernization programme at its Langley plant—production home of the Ford D Series truck and R Series bus and coach ranges. Both schemes provide additional facilities at each plant for future modeli At Southampton, most of the additional space will be filled by a new two-storey assembly building. It will contain its own facilities, including compressors and transformers. An office block will be incorporated in the structure. While all Transit models will be built within this self-contained factory, the rest of the factory system will continue to make, paint and partially trim cabs for the D Series truck range which will be transported to Langley for final assembly.