Besides the Rover/Land Rover plant in Solihull, another plant in England that is highly regarded and celebrated is the Ford Dagenham, England assembly plant.

The Ford Dagenham plant had produced Ford/Fordson tractors, and Sierras for the British market were manufactured there from the Sierra’s introduction in 1981 until 1990 when production for the whole entire European market (The British Isles and Continental Europe) was consolidated entirely in the Antwerp, Belgium plant.

The Dagenham plant had replaced the earlier Trafford Park, England plant; and the Dagenham plant’s architecture and layout had been modeled after the Ford River Rouge complex in Dearborn, Michigan. On May 17, 1929; Henry Ford’s son Edsel had cut the first sod on the reclaimed marshland. Construction of the site took two years with the first vehicle, a Model AA truck, rolling off the production line in October, 1931. After vehicle assembly had ended in 2002, the plant continued onwards with an expanded engine facility making it a global center of excellence for diesel engineering. As Henry Ford’s son Edsel (for whom the Edsel passenger car for the North American market had been named after) cut the first sod on May 17, 1929, it was perhaps oracular that he hit a large stone and bent the spade, not for the last time would Ford find itself facing hard times. But then, as now, Ford quickly rose to the challenge and some nifty work with a hammer and railway track soon remedied the problem and digging continued. The site, reclaimed marshland previously used for London’s waste, presented its own problems. Around 22,000 concrete piles were driven 80 feet into the ground to form the base of the building. Construction took two years and over a single weekend in September, 1931; special trains carried 2,000 employees, their families and possessions; from the outgoing Ford plant at Trafford Park to their new life in Dagenham. A hospital, foundry, quayside, and a power station completed the site.

On October 1, 1931 at 1:16 P.M, the first vehicle to be built at Dagenham left the production line. It was a Model AA truck that had been driven off the assembly line by Sir Rowland Smith, who was Ford’s General Manager at the time. Built at a cost of £5 million, the Dagenham factory opened in the depths of the depression and, although business was slow at first; the British press had referred to Dagenham as a “magnificent gesture of faith in Britain’s commercial future, and a lighthouse of hope in a storm-tossed sea of industry.” Before WWII, Dagenham built the unimaginatively named 8hp, 10hp, 22hp and 30hp ranges. It also built the Model Y (also known as the Ford Popular), the first and only full size car thus far to be offered at just £100. From 1939 war production took over with 360,000 light vans, army trucks, balloon winches, mobile canteens and Ford V8-powered Bren Gun carriers rolling off the lines. Dagenham was also responsible for building 34,000 Merlin aircraft engines and 95% of Britain’s vitally important tractor production. And all this took place as over 200 German bombs landed on the Dagenham estate.

In the post war years, Dagenham turned its interests to the revolutionary Consul and Zephyr range of cars. Major expansion in the 1950s increased floor space by 50% and doubled production. By 1953 the site occupied four million square feet and employed 40,000 people. As the 1960’s took hold, Dagenham moved on to build a car that was destined to become one of Britain’s favorites: the Ford Cortina. By the time the last Cortina left the assembly line in 1982, the plant had built over three million of them. By this time, Dagenham was already producing the Ford Fiesta, which had been introduced in 1976. When production for the British market had commenced in 1981, the Fiesta had been joined by the Ford Sierra, which replaced the Cortina.

In May, 2000; the shocking announcement came that passenger car assembly at Dagenham would cease and on February 20, 2002; the vehicle assembly lines stopped for the last time. In the 71 years of its existence; Dagenham had built 10,980,368 cars, trucks and tractors. Placed end to end they would stretch over 400,000km – enough vehicles to circle the world 10 times over. But Dagenham was not finished. Thriving press shop and transport operations were joined by expanded engine facilities, making Dagenham Ford’s global center of excellence for diesel engine engineering. The last passenger car to ever be produced at Dagenham was the Mark IV Fiesta until production ceased in 2002 and from that point on until the present day as of the time of this writing; the plant would solely build diesel engines for passenger cars.

The Ford Basildon, England factory was built in the 1960’s to produce the new Ford World series tractors (also known as the Ford 6X series). The factory was built at Basildon in Essex and is located a few miles from Ford’s existing facility at Dagenham, also located in Essex. Tractor production had been moved from Dagenham to Basildon so that Dagenham could concentrate solely on building passenger cars and engines and not have to be cross-subsidized by tractor production. This move had also allowed Ford to expand car and engine production to a larger amount with the space in the plant being freed up by tractor production having been moved to Basildon. Engines from Dagenham were being used in the new tractor assembly plant along with other castings from the facilities in the large foundry complex. The Ford Motor Company had sold their tractor division to Fiat in 1991, and by the year 2000; Fiat had to discontinue use of the Ford name and could only market the tractors with the New Holland name from 2001 on.