Ford is celebrating its 100th birthday this week.

In the UK, Ford directly employs over 15,000 people, many in highly skilled roles developing and building high-technology, fuel-efficient, low CO2 engines. The Ford plants at Bridgend in South Wales and Dagenham in East London have the combined capacity to assemble two million engines annually and one in three Ford cars globally is powered by a UK engine. A further 100,000 jobs are supported through the Ford supplier chain and dealer network.

Ford is investing £1.5 billion in low carbon engineering and manufacturing that will help underpin the UK's manufacturing and export-based economic recovery.
Ford of Britain chairman, Joe Greenwell, said: "Ford of Britain has been in the fabric of the nation for over a hundred years. We have a proud heritage and a bright future. Ford of Britain is a major pillar of Ford's global strategy and the new Ford Focus, centrepiece of the centenary, features advanced powertrains developed and produced in the UK."

Over 80 years after its opening, Dagenham is still London’s largest industrial employer and around 40,000 Ford vehicles are built in the UK each year at the Ford Southampton plant.

Ford Dagenham also provides a leading example of the company's sustainability strategy. The most economical internal combustion engines Ford produces are assembled in a plant that generates all its own electricity, from wind power. The Dagenham wind turbines produce 6.7 million kilowatt hours of clean electricity each year – which has avoided over 6,500 tonnes of annual CO2 emissions, since 2004.

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