Boom in demand for Transits boosts factory (From Daily Echo)

Good news for ford! Excellent.

I also want the sport transit please :)

It's a shame it is most likely to plummit again by the end of the year.

StEmmosfire wrote:
It's a shame it is most likely to plummit again by the end of the year.

Great attitude! That'a boy!

Shoong wrote:

StEmmosfire wrote:
It's a shame it is most likely to plummit again by the end of the year.

Great attitude! That'a boy!

no he right, the turkey plant is not fully up and running yet, they have teething problems there.

Perhaps with the unrest in the area it isn't such a good idea to go to Turkey!

southy wrote:

Shoong wrote:

StEmmosfire wrote:
It's a shame it is most likely to plummit again by the end of the year.

Great attitude! That'a boy!

no he right, the turkey plant is not fully up and running yet, they have teething problems there.

At least things sound better at the Swaythling plant for the moment.
.
The Transit panel van will be moved over to Turkey come 2012 last I heard, and we'll be left with making chassis cabs. A sad day for Southampton that'll be. Best of luck for the future all at Ford Southampton!

SpittingFire wrote:

southy wrote:

Shoong wrote:

StEmmosfire wrote:
It's a shame it is most likely to plummit again by the end of the year.

Great attitude! That'a boy!

no he right, the turkey plant is not fully up and running yet, they have teething problems there.

At least things sound better at the Swaythling plant for the moment.
.
The Transit panel van will be moved over to Turkey come 2012 last I heard, and we'll be left with making chassis cabs. A sad day for Southampton that'll be. Best of luck for the future all at Ford Southampton!

its only the home market pick up a little bit, the export is still dropping off.

OSPREYSAINT wrote:
Perhaps with the unrest in the area it isn't such a good idea to go to Turkey!

oh that would be funny. transit move to turkey and the USA back government is kick out of office and replace with a socialist government in office and they nationalise turkey plant has well as the oil fields.

southy wrote:

SpittingFire wrote:

southy wrote:

Shoong wrote:

StEmmosfire wrote: It's a shame it is most likely to plummit again by the end of the year.

Great attitude! That'a boy!

no he right, the turkey plant is not fully up and running yet, they have teething problems there.

At least things sound better at the Swaythling plant for the moment. . The Transit panel van will be moved over to Turkey come 2012 last I heard, and we'll be left with making chassis cabs. A sad day for Southampton that'll be. Best of luck for the future all at Ford Southampton!

its only the home market pick up a little bit, the export is still dropping off.

Any facts to back this up or just your usual 'speculation'?

southy wrote:

SpittingFire wrote:

southy wrote:

Shoong wrote:

StEmmosfire wrote:
It's a shame it is most likely to plummit again by the end of the year.

Great attitude! That'a boy!

no he right, the turkey plant is not fully up and running yet, they have teething problems there.

At least things sound better at the Swaythling plant for the moment.
.
The Transit panel van will be moved over to Turkey come 2012 last I heard, and we'll be left with making chassis cabs. A sad day for Southampton that'll be. Best of luck for the future all at Ford Southampton!

its only the home market pick up a little bit, the export is still dropping off.

I remember the Transit ads from a few years ago; "Transit. Backbone of Britain" was the catchline. Those were the days!

phil maccavity wrote:

southy wrote:

SpittingFire wrote:

southy wrote:

Shoong wrote:

StEmmosfire wrote: It's a shame it is most likely to plummit again by the end of the year.

Great attitude! That'a boy!

no he right, the turkey plant is not fully up and running yet, they have teething problems there.

At least things sound better at the Swaythling plant for the moment. . The Transit panel van will be moved over to Turkey come 2012 last I heard, and we'll be left with making chassis cabs. A sad day for Southampton that'll be. Best of luck for the future all at Ford Southampton!

its only the home market pick up a little bit, the export is still dropping off.

Any facts to back this up or just your usual 'speculation'?

try talking to people who work for transit, like i have. the same thing happened in the 80's recession, there was a small pick up on sale in cars for the home market while export sales was still dropping off, and then the homes sales came to an end has we sunk even deeper into the recession.
but this time your heading for a depression.
oh by the way i knew about this last week. and all that is happening here with the release of this info, is to try and boost public confidence that,s all. which will not work all it will do is demoralise the public even more when this small peek in sales drop off, and we start to slide even deeper in to economic slump.

Quote....Mr Sharp said: “Southampton plant is putting in a tremendous performance with annual production up from 21,000 to 28,000 vehicles a year...

Oh really...we struggling to hit targets every day due to undermaning/poor equipment/breakdowns and basically not being listened to by the management about whats going wrong with the plant.
These figures must be including turkey or a previous years...or maybe they are fiddled numbers just like we see everyday so it looks good on paper

SpittingFire wrote:

southy wrote:

SpittingFire wrote:

southy wrote:

Shoong wrote:

StEmmosfire wrote:
It's a shame it is most likely to plummit again by the end of the year.

Great attitude! That'a boy!

no he right, the turkey plant is not fully up and running yet, they have teething problems there.

At least things sound better at the Swaythling plant for the moment.
.
The Transit panel van will be moved over to Turkey come 2012 last I heard, and we'll be left with making chassis cabs. A sad day for Southampton that'll be. Best of luck for the future all at Ford Southampton!

its only the home market pick up a little bit, the export is still dropping off.

I remember the Transit ads from a few years ago; "Transit. Backbone of Britain" was the catchline. Those were the days!

yes big turn around now, but those days fords had no real competition, they had the home market sow up, with maggie destruction of BL.

southy wrote:

SpittingFire wrote:

southy wrote:

SpittingFire wrote:

southy wrote:

Shoong wrote:

StEmmosfire wrote:
It's a shame it is most likely to plummit again by the end of the year.

Great attitude! That'a boy!

no he right, the turkey plant is not fully up and running yet, they have teething problems there.

At least things sound better at the Swaythling plant for the moment.
.
The Transit panel van will be moved over to Turkey come 2012 last I heard, and we'll be left with making chassis cabs. A sad day for Southampton that'll be. Best of luck for the future all at Ford Southampton!

its only the home market pick up a little bit, the export is still dropping off.

I remember the Transit ads from a few years ago; "Transit. Backbone of Britain" was the catchline. Those were the days!

yes big turn around now, but those days fords had no real competition, they had the home market sow up, with maggie destruction of BL.

Just knew that you would mention your beloved maggie again. You really are one big yawn.

oldmac wrote:
Quote....Mr Sharp said: “Southampton plant is putting in a tremendous performance with annual production up from 21,000 to 28,000 vehicles a year...

Oh really...we struggling to hit targets every day due to undermaning/poor equipment/breakdowns and basically not being listened to by the management about whats going wrong with the plant.
These figures must be including turkey or a previous years...or maybe they are fiddled numbers just like we see everyday so it looks good on paper

Quite right oldmac!
.
Even this Echo report paves the way for contradictions...

Echo - "Management have revealed that after a challenging 2010..."
.
But...
.
Mr Sharp Managing Director, He himself "said last year was a good year for the company"
.
Always got to watch what you read. Especially when it comes out of Murray's office in newsprint.
.
Just a Southy says, trying to boost public confidence, but like yourself, tales from the shop floor tell a different story.

southy wrote:

SpittingFire wrote:

southy wrote:

SpittingFire wrote:

southy wrote:

Shoong wrote:

StEmmosfire wrote:
It's a shame it is most likely to plummit again by the end of the year.

Great attitude! That'a boy!

no he right, the turkey plant is not fully up and running yet, they have teething problems there.

At least things sound better at the Swaythling plant for the moment.
.
The Transit panel van will be moved over to Turkey come 2012 last I heard, and we'll be left with making chassis cabs. A sad day for Southampton that'll be. Best of luck for the future all at Ford Southampton!

its only the home market pick up a little bit, the export is still dropping off.

I remember the Transit ads from a few years ago; "Transit. Backbone of Britain" was the catchline. Those were the days!

yes big turn around now, but those days fords had no real competition, they had the home market sow up, with maggie destruction of BL.

How can maggie be responsible for poor quality vehicles that BL used to turn out ? There was more rust in them after 5 years than there was metal !

cyber_fug wrote:

southy wrote:

SpittingFire wrote:

southy wrote:

SpittingFire wrote:

southy wrote:

Shoong wrote:

StEmmosfire wrote:
It's a shame it is most likely to plummit again by the end of the year.

Great attitude! That'a boy!

no he right, the turkey plant is not fully up and running yet, they have teething problems there.

At least things sound better at the Swaythling plant for the moment.
.
The Transit panel van will be moved over to Turkey come 2012 last I heard, and we'll be left with making chassis cabs. A sad day for Southampton that'll be. Best of luck for the future all at Ford Southampton!

its only the home market pick up a little bit, the export is still dropping off.

I remember the Transit ads from a few years ago; "Transit. Backbone of Britain" was the catchline. Those were the days!

yes big turn around now, but those days fords had no real competition, they had the home market sow up, with maggie destruction of BL.

How can maggie be responsible for poor quality vehicles that BL used to turn out ? There was more rust in them after 5 years than there was metal !

Yes, I do believe that Southy is referring to the company that went bankrupt in 1975 and had to be bailed out by the Government, but still continued to produce cars which were poorly designed and built and with a depreciation graph that was nearly vertical.
You cannot just keep pouring money down a hole like that - Even the most ardent Socialist expects to break even at the very least.
As for their commercial vehicles - The farmers were the probably the target customers, at least they had a good supply of baler twine to hold them together.

I never knew baler twine had so many uses!

SpittingFire wrote:
I never knew baler twine had so many uses!

Oh Yes - It's not just for holding your trousers up!

X Old Bill wrote:

SpittingFire wrote:
I never knew baler twine had so many uses!

Oh Yes - It's not just for holding your trousers up!

Crikey, them farmers' have got it good!

X Old Bill wrote:

cyber_fug wrote:

southy wrote:

SpittingFire wrote:

southy wrote:

SpittingFire wrote:

southy wrote:

Shoong wrote:

StEmmosfire wrote:
It's a shame it is most likely to plummit again by the end of the year.

Great attitude! That'a boy!

no he right, the turkey plant is not fully up and running yet, they have teething problems there.

At least things sound better at the Swaythling plant for the moment.
.
The Transit panel van will be moved over to Turkey come 2012 last I heard, and we'll be left with making chassis cabs. A sad day for Southampton that'll be. Best of luck for the future all at Ford Southampton!

its only the home market pick up a little bit, the export is still dropping off.

I remember the Transit ads from a few years ago; "Transit. Backbone of Britain" was the catchline. Those were the days!

yes big turn around now, but those days fords had no real competition, they had the home market sow up, with maggie destruction of BL.

How can maggie be responsible for poor quality vehicles that BL used to turn out ? There was more rust in them after 5 years than there was metal !

Yes, I do believe that Southy is referring to the company that went bankrupt in 1975 and had to be bailed out by the Government, but still continued to produce cars which were poorly designed and built and with a depreciation graph that was nearly vertical.
You cannot just keep pouring money down a hole like that - Even the most ardent Socialist expects to break even at the very least.
As for their commercial vehicles - The farmers were the probably the target customers, at least they had a good supply of baler twine to hold them together.

BL had one of the best exports for cars they was up in the top with fords, GM. BL cars lasted a lot longer than fords did on british roads, with out any rust there life expectancy was longer than any other car in countrys that used salt in the winter on the roads. it was because they lasted so long people did not buy so often, today society is a throw away society where goods do not last no where near has long. BL and there designs where more practical and they done more miles to gallon to engine size, and the only company that done better to BL on mpg was citroen.
your more likely to use baler twine on modern cars than you where on older cars, BL just check had the highest export for cars in europe in the 70's.
use to often see a BL car towing a Ford or Ford being pushed to get it started in the winter it was the norm. world best selling car was a BL.

Well most of this Southy's post is, as usual, pure conjecture.
What is absolute nonsense is the suggestion that...............
'BL had the highest export for cars (sic) in europe in the 70's'
The UK produced only produced an average of 600,00 cars in the 70's of which approx 50% were exported.
Germany produced an average 3m cars of which VW and Opel exported more than any British manufacturer.
The old fool goes onto say
'worlds best selling car was a BL'...
Because of dreadful build quality, poor design and attrocious strike records, the UK car manufacturers in the 70's were miles behind Italy, France, Japan, Germany and alongside Canada.
The USA outstripped them all with between 6-8million cars produced in the 70's.
Source, if Southy wants to look up, is the World Automotive Statistics book!!

phil maccavity wrote:
Well most of this Southy's post is, as usual, pure conjecture.
What is absolute nonsense is the suggestion that...............
'BL had the highest export for cars (sic) in europe in the 70's'
The UK produced only produced an average of 600,00 cars in the 70's of which approx 50% were exported.
Germany produced an average 3m cars of which VW and Opel exported more than any British manufacturer.
The old fool goes onto say
'worlds best selling car was a BL'...
Because of dreadful build quality, poor design and attrocious strike records, the UK car manufacturers in the 70's were miles behind Italy, France, Japan, Germany and alongside Canada.
The USA outstripped them all with between 6-8million cars produced in the 70's.
Source, if Southy wants to look up, is the World Automotive Statistics book!!

Steady on Phil, now you've rubbished southys usual drivel with cold hard facts he wont be back.

he can't rubbish facts, the mini in the 70,s, and the 3 biggest sellers was morris mini, austin mini, and the mini cooper made in 11 different countries, the mini's and the VW beetle was the only models that made the car production rally's just by sales alone, all other models that got to the production rally's could only do it on production and could not make it on sales, a lot of car company,s use to produce high number cars, just to be able to take part in the production rally's, most of those cars ended up in fields to be left for 2 years before getting scrap, renault and fords was famous for doing that.
variates of the mini was clubman, countryman, traveler, moke, pickup, van, gt, cooper-s and the wolseley hornet and the riley elf, the mini van sold 1/2 million in the 70's.
other well selling cars from BL in the 70's was MG, MGB, MGBT, trumph, daimler, bentley, RR, princess jags and a few more.
the mini had fords that worried they took one and pulled it apart and came up with that they could not build car of this size, that was well made for the price it sold for, and for fords to do so would cost them £30 per car in loses, if they tried to compete with the mini. in the mid 80's the mini went down hill after the sale off and the asset stripping braking up BL.

the nearest contender to the ford transit was the bedford CA in the uk in the 70s and 80's. BL had a new design for a van to replace the D and J class vans, but was never made under BL, it came out under layland daff.

So the Mini was made in 11 different countries?? What utter nonsense.
Go on name the countries..
You reckon the Mini Van sold half a million in the 70's. Nonsense
The best year for UK car producrion in the 70's was 1.9m in 1972.
Approx 40% of this figure were produced in the various BL factories and 50% went for export. So BL, at best, exported about 380,000 vehicles per year in the 70's, of which a large proportion were Land Rovers!!.
BL comprised 10 major brands ie Jaguar, Daimler, Rover (incl Land Rover), Triumph, Riley,Wolseley, Standard (later merged with Truimph), MG, Morris, Austin.
As usual your facts are incorrect.
Bentley and Rolls Royce were never part of B Leyland!!!!
If you reckon that BL were well made cars you never had the opportunity to drive a Marina,Allegro, Maxi, Princess or any of the rubbish that came out of the various British factories.
Meanwhile people like Red Robbo (proabaly a hero of yours) was creating mayhem in the BL car factories and hastening the demise of a once proud British manufacturing institution

Sorry Phil I was wrong about him coming back after stating cold hard facts. What i wasn't wrong about was the drivel that he spouts. As you say RR and Bentley were never part of the BL group. Southy, you know everything about nothing.

A change of medication sometimes helps!!

phil maccavity wrote:
So the Mini was made in 11 different countries?? What utter nonsense.
Go on name the countries..
You reckon the Mini Van sold half a million in the 70's. Nonsense
The best year for UK car producrion in the 70's was 1.9m in 1972.
Approx 40% of this figure were produced in the various BL factories and 50% went for export. So BL, at best, exported about 380,000 vehicles per year in the 70's, of which a large proportion were Land Rovers!!.
BL comprised 10 major brands ie Jaguar, Daimler, Rover (incl Land Rover), Triumph, Riley,Wolseley, Standard (later merged with Truimph), MG, Morris, Austin.
As usual your facts are incorrect.
Bentley and Rolls Royce were never part of B Leyland!!!!
If you reckon that BL were well made cars you never had the opportunity to drive a Marina,Allegro, Maxi, Princess or any of the rubbish that came out of the various British factories.
Meanwhile people like Red Robbo (proabaly a hero of yours) was creating mayhem in the BL car factories and hastening the demise of a once proud British manufacturing institution

I agree with everything there apart from the rubbish in the last para about Derek Robinson. I notice you say nothing about the awful management at BL at the time who often created situations that provoked disputes? There are always two sides to every story. You just choose the side that confirm and backs up your political beliefs..
.
I by the way have owned a Metro and a Marina. They werent brilliant at all. Personally Ford were best. I owned a Capri and then an Orian and a Mondeo. All good reliable motors.

phil maccavity wrote:
So the Mini was made in 11 different countries?? What utter nonsense.
Go on name the countries..
You reckon the Mini Van sold half a million in the 70's. Nonsense
The best year for UK car producrion in the 70's was 1.9m in 1972.
Approx 40% of this figure were produced in the various BL factories and 50% went for export. So BL, at best, exported about 380,000 vehicles per year in the 70's, of which a large proportion were Land Rovers!!.
BL comprised 10 major brands ie Jaguar, Daimler, Rover (incl Land Rover), Triumph, Riley,Wolseley, Standard (later merged with Truimph), MG, Morris, Austin.
As usual your facts are incorrect.
Bentley and Rolls Royce were never part of B Leyland!!!!
If you reckon that BL were well made cars you never had the opportunity to drive a Marina,Allegro, Maxi, Princess or any of the rubbish that came out of the various British factories.
Meanwhile people like Red Robbo (proabaly a hero of yours) was creating mayhem in the BL car factories and hastening the demise of a once proud British manufacturing institution

oh boy you know very little, shall i start you off with a few countries that made minis, lets see try spain, portugal, belgium, south africa, australia, new zealand, chile. theres 7 for you and that,s off the top of my head with out looking it up.
the rest i not going to bother with because your so full of right-wing false propaganda BS.

BL also ended owning the italian innocenti company who all so made minis, production of minis ended in 1976 there, but they carried on with the kit cars that had mini base, they also made some of the rarer minis.
BL overseas production came to an end in 1983, when BL was being asset strip by the government and sold off.

southy wrote:

phil maccavity wrote:
So the Mini was made in 11 different countries?? What utter nonsense.
Go on name the countries..
You reckon the Mini Van sold half a million in the 70's. Nonsense
The best year for UK car producrion in the 70's was 1.9m in 1972.
Approx 40% of this figure were produced in the various BL factories and 50% went for export. So BL, at best, exported about 380,000 vehicles per year in the 70's, of which a large proportion were Land Rovers!!.
BL comprised 10 major brands ie Jaguar, Daimler, Rover (incl Land Rover), Triumph, Riley,Wolseley, Standard (later merged with Truimph), MG, Morris, Austin.
As usual your facts are incorrect.
Bentley and Rolls Royce were never part of B Leyland!!!!
If you reckon that BL were well made cars you never had the opportunity to drive a Marina,Allegro, Maxi, Princess or any of the rubbish that came out of the various British factories.
Meanwhile people like Red Robbo (proabaly a hero of yours) was creating mayhem in the BL car factories and hastening the demise of a once proud British manufacturing institution

oh boy you know very little, shall i start you off with a few countries that made minis, lets see try spain, portugal, belgium, south africa, australia, new zealand, chile. theres 7 for you and that,s off the top of my head with out looking it up.
the rest i not going to bother with because your so full of right-wing false propaganda BS.

So then Lenin/Trotsky, sorry I mean Southy, are you going to acknowledge your error in stating that RR and Bentley were part of BL or not. Once again you are the one talking BS

Sticking with the topic of vans:
I have driven a variety of Transit size vans over the years.
The of Austin/Morris J2 and J4 were really awful slow rattly boxes with hopeless handling when loaded. I recall that with the J2 one could roll a fag while waiting to get into 3rd gear.
When the transit arrived it was a joy to drive, 'just like a car' until one tried to stop - They did sort the brakes out after awhile.
The Bedford CF was the only real Transit alternative, very similar in equipment and handling.
Nowadays the Mercedes Sprinter has the edge.
.
Back to BL - The Mini was built in the UK, Australia, Belgium, Chile, Portugal, South Africa, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yugoslavia, In Italy as the Innocenti, and in Spain as the Authi, in both cases to get around those countries import restrictions.
So it was 11 countries, but not for the Cooper which were UK built.
Under the Rover and Triumph badges BL also build Hondas - The Honda engines were good but the rest was pretty awful (personal experience).
And - The top selling car in the UK for most of the 70s and 80s was the Ford Escort, as I recall, which made homologation quite a simple process.

phil maccavity wrote:
So the Mini was made in 11 different countries?? What utter nonsense.
Go on name the countries..
You reckon the Mini Van sold half a million in the 70's. Nonsense
The best year for UK car producrion in the 70's was 1.9m in 1972.
Approx 40% of this figure were produced in the various BL factories and 50% went for export. So BL, at best, exported about 380,000 vehicles per year in the 70's, of which a large proportion were Land Rovers!!.
BL comprised 10 major brands ie Jaguar, Daimler, Rover (incl Land Rover), Triumph, Riley,Wolseley, Standard (later merged with Truimph), MG, Morris, Austin.
As usual your facts are incorrect.
Bentley and Rolls Royce were never part of B Leyland!!!!
If you reckon that BL were well made cars you never had the opportunity to drive a Marina,Allegro, Maxi, Princess or any of the rubbish that came out of the various British factories.
Meanwhile people like Red Robbo (proabaly a hero of yours) was creating mayhem in the BL car factories and hastening the demise of a once proud British manufacturing institution

Please check here
.
http://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Mini
.
to see all the countries the Mini were one time manufactured in. I know Southy can be irritating but he has a point about were the Mini was manufactured.

There is a difference between Manufacture and Assembly
Minis were assembled abroad not manufactured!!
Body shells and parts were shipped abroad to be assembled locally.
Sometimes supplemented by parts manufactured in the country of assembly, if available.
Hillmans (produced in Coventry and part of the Rootes Group) were another make sent abroad as CKD packs to be assembled.
A good many of these under the Hillman Hunter marque were shipped to Persia (Iran) as part of a big export deal in the 70/80's and apparently still about in reasonable numbers like the Morris Isis in India

In 2008 the capacity of the plant was 80,000 over two shifts - so how does Mr Sharp figure that 28,000 units is 'capacity' for one shift?
I make that 12,000 units under capacity.
Perhaps he is confusing the term 'schedule' with 'capacity'???

Militant Ford Worker wrote:
In 2008 the capacity of the plant was 80,000 over two shifts - so how does Mr Sharp figure that 28,000 units is 'capacity' for one shift? I make that 12,000 units under capacity. Perhaps he is confusing the term 'schedule' with 'capacity'???

You are forgetting our old mutual freiend Alf Ensafety, no doubt so many petty restrictions it reduces production a treat!

phil maccavity wrote:
There is a difference between Manufacture and Assembly
Minis were assembled abroad not manufactured!!
Body shells and parts were shipped abroad to be assembled locally.
Sometimes supplemented by parts manufactured in the country of assembly, if available.
Hillmans (produced in Coventry and part of the Rootes Group) were another make sent abroad as CKD packs to be assembled.
A good many of these under the Hillman Hunter marque were shipped to Persia (Iran) as part of a big export deal in the 70/80's and apparently still about in reasonable numbers like the Morris Isis in India

You said
"So the Mini was made in 11 different countries?? What utter nonsense."
.
You didnt say assembly or manufacture. You disputed the 11 countries bit evident in the quote above.