Ford has announced that its factory in Dagenham will make the diesel engines for its next generation of Transit Custom vans.
The US vehicle maker described the decision as positive news for the manufacturing plant in east London, and said it would safeguard jobs at the site, which employs around 2,000 people, 60% of whom build engines.
The engines produced in Dagenham, along with transmissions from Cologne in Germany, will be shipped to Turkey, where the new range of Transit Custom commercial vehicles will be assembled by the carmaker’s Ford Otosan joint venture.
The new Transit Custom models will also be available in all-electric and plug-in hybrid versions, as part of Ford’s pledge for all of its cars on sale in Europe to be all-electric by 2030, and for two-thirds of its commercial vehicles to be available as all-electric or plug-in hybrid.
Ford Otosan announced in December it was planning to invest €2bn (£1.7bn) in its plants in the Kocaeli region in north-western Turkey, to increase vehicle and battery pack production and create more jobs.
Since 2004, the Kocaeli site has been Ford’s lead manufacturing plant for its mid-sized Transit Custom, as well as its larger two-tonne Transit vehicle.
Ford’s decision to manufacture engines for the Transit Custom vehicles in Dagenham was described by plant manager Martin Everitt as “great news”.
He said it “reinforces the strong relationship between diesel engine production at Dagenham and Transit vehicle production at Ford Otosan in Turkey”.
By 2025, up to 60% of the diesel engines made at the east London plant are expected to be destined for Ford’s one-tonne commercial vehicles being built in Turkey.
Just under one-third of the finished vehicles are exported from Turkey to Britain, destined for UK customers. The Transit Custom remains extremely popular and was named the UK’s second highest-selling vehicle of 2020, behind the Ford Fiesta.
Ford permanently closed its other British engine plant, located at Bridgend in south Wales, in September 2020, with the loss of 1,700 jobs.
The closure, first announced in 2019, was part of Ford’s decision to close a total of six European factories and to cut 12,000 jobs across Europe, in an attempt to turn around its struggling business.
Ford previously built the Transit model in the UK, but it closed its Southampton factory in 2013, ending more than a century of vehicle assembly in Britain.
Ford and Ford Otosan business now constitutes more than 10% of the total trade volume between the UK and Turkey.
The UK international trade minister, Ranil Jayawardena, called the announcement “great news for Ford and its 7,500 workers across the United Kingdom”.
