Business & Finance: Ford in London

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Some years ago, Henry Ford established an experimental factory at Cork, but his calculations did not in-clude the local brand of corrupt politics. Abandoning the Irish base, he next tried Southampton but ran into the heavy handicap of red tape on the part of city officials. Simultaneously, he opened a small plant near Manchester, but has not found it desirable to expand his facilities there.

In consequence, after these many wanderings, Mr. Ford has decided to locate his main British factory in Dagenham, ten miles from the heart of London. The new plant will employ 10,000 men, will turn out 500 cars a day. It will be the largest automobile plant in the British Isles, although small compared with existing Ford factories in Detroit.

The incentive behind Mr. Ford's determination to build and operate in England is undoubtedly that he will have there no competitors in manu- factoring cheap cars. The cheapest British car costs $575; British makers are so unaccustomed to standardization of a few models only, that they manufacture over 300 models. Daimler alone has 5f models.

In all England, there are at pres-ent only 350,000 cars. Of these, about 200,000 are Fords.