SOUTHAMPTON was Home of the Transit for 40 years and over two million vans rolled off the production line at Wide Lane, Swaythling.

Five years on since the closure of the Ford Transit Assembly Plant, the last transit that was signed by employees in 2013 will go on public display for the first time.

The Transition Project pop-up museum will explore the industrial transformations of this small but historically significant site.

The exhibition on April 3- April 9, tells the story of the site’s transformation from WW2 aircraft manufacture, through the heyday of mass production of the iconic ‘white van’ Transit, to the current high-tech logistics park.

Told through the voices of the men and women whose stories were captured during oral history interviews in 2013 and in the 2017 Heritage Lottery funded project, Transition: from fields to Ford and beyond, the exhibition brings to life the conditions, atmosphere, camaraderie and banter on a production line and invites audiences to embrace the next chapter of this small site with a big story to tell.

Emma Golby-Kirk, Transition Project Director says: “Thanks to HLF support we’ve been able to work with the local community, former employees and Mountpark to ensure the heritage of this significant site is not forgotten.

“We are excited to be able to really bring this story to life as a pop-up museum and would like to thank our team of talented and committed volunteers, who have been key to project’s success.”

The museum will be housed in shipping containers sited at the Ford Vehicle Repair Centre, Wide Lane, Swaythling and will open from April 3 – April 9. Entry is free but must be booked in advance at https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/ford-transition., or in person at the Round About café on Westfield Corner, Wide Lane, Swaythling.

The plant was celebrating its 22nd year with the biggest expansion programme in history back in 1973.

Until the construction of the then new “C” building for Transit assemble ay Swaythling, the three original buildings with a labour force of 2,700 produced all Ford’s commercial vehicle bodies for transportation by road to the Ford plant at Langley in Buckinghamshire.

Many of the transporter trailers, which became such a familitar sight on the Southampton to London road logged more than one million miles.

Southampton’s importance as an integral part of Ford’s was illustrated by the role of the press shop.

There, 300 men working in three shifts produced over 500 different types of panels for shipment to the company’s plants at Dagenham, Halewood, Genk in Belgium, Saarlouis, Germany and Southampton’s own body plant.

In 1972 it was Ford’s boast that it had produced more than 27million panels.

Similarly, the plant as a whole was supplied from other Ford facilities. Rear axles from Swansea, gear boxes from Halewood and engines from Dagenham.

In the eight year since the Transit’s introduction in 1973, the Southampton plant had supplied Langley with in excess of 300,000 Transit bodies.

Early in 1965, it became the first commercial plant in Europe to use an electropaint process. Recognised as the biggest breakthrough in painting since the arrival of the spray gun, the Ford-pioneered system went on to be adopted by most other major manufacturers.

Amongst the plant’s advanced machinery was a highly-sophisticated multi-welder, which produced up to 200 welds on the Transit under-body in 17 automatic operations.

But the Swaythling factory had always been at the mercy of company reorga-nisation.

As early as 1963, some 500 jobs were announced as going as a result of production of the 5cwt and 7cwt being transferred to the Ford Merseyside plant at Halewood near Liverpool.

At the time it was documented as one of the biggest mass redundancies since the war.

But it was large scale strikes that were to shape the landscape of the company, beginning in the late 1960s and blighting production in the 1970s and 1980s.

Before the general strikes over pay that were to affect the whole country, workers were walking out over other issues.

In 1968 a dispute between a foreman and a shop steward led to a walkout by staff.

Led by paint shop workers, staff refused to go back to work after management said they would be investigating the incident.

Production was halted while the matter was resolved.

Some 700 men were reported to have downed tools in 1969 in protest at a pay deal by Ford worth £5m.

They were out again in 1971 when Southampton’s 2,500 Ford workers voted unanimously to walk out in protest against the company’s £2 a week pay offer.

Production losses were put at £2m a day.

A dispute by suppliers to the Swaythling plant led to production being halted in 1972.

A company in the Mid-lands saw workers walk out leading to supplies drying up at the Ford factory in Southampton for three weeks.

Although the expansion plans in the early 1970s were to lead to more jobs and production, it was not all plain sailing.

Around 200 workers from the paint shop went out on strike in 1972 because more demands were being put on the paint shop due to the production of complete Transit vans increasing.

Strikes continued into the 1980s and 1990s, although the issues changed to reflect the moves by motor bosses to enforce compulsory redundancies as well as not meeting pay demands.

This was in the face of falling sales and profits.

In 1994, production was halted after 300 maintenance workers downed tools

Production was also reduced in 1996 when a shortage of orders led to a three-day week.

In 2002, Ford stopped producing passenger cars in the UK, leaving the Southampton-made Transit as their only British-made vehicle.

In 2008 a four-day week was introduced at the plant before a month-long Christmas shutdown.

In 2009, despite guaranteeing the future of the plant to produce the chassis cab, the company announced global losses of |£10.2 billion – the worst in its history.

Then Ford halved production at Southampton owing to the opening of a factory in Turkey and made 550 redundancies, leaving the same number employed.

In October 2012 Ford announced that, as part of a larger cutback of their European production capacity, the Southampton factory would close altogether in July 2013.

The site is currently being developed as a new £100 million industrial estate, called Mountpark.

Part opened in November, it could host 1,200 jobs once finished.