BBC 2 20:00hrs today.
"Documentary which tells the story of the British love affair with the American dream cars made at Ford in Dagenham in the 1960s and 70s. Ford helped put the nation on wheels with its fast, sexy cars such as the Zephyr, the Cortina and the Capri, which were pure rock'n'roll and hugely appealing to the younger generation."
Should be interesting.
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This was on a couple of weeks ago. Very good programme and I was amazed of the scale of the Dagenham plant and what they did there.
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Yes this was on BBC 4 a couple of weeks ago ........But
Thankyou for the heads up, im going to watch it again, as it was really good I to was amazed at the scale of the place and what they did to produce cars there. I shall be watching again :-)
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Interesting prog.
I had an uncle who was in charge of the apprentices at Dag. I remember he bought me a card kit of the new 105E anglia when they came out. The cigarettes got him in 1965, still working. I think he must have worked at the Trafford Park factory and transferred to Essex as my aunt, who he married in 1933 lived in Barton on Irwell. Lovely man, always went to their house in Westcliff on Sea for our hols.
Ted
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Blimey, I was brought up in Westcliff-on-Sea. You must have been pretty keen for a holiday :-). At one time the A13 from Hadleigh to Southend-on-Sea was wall to wall with second hand car dealers. I was there at the weekend visting relatives and couldnt help but notice how many had closed down now, even some I recollect from my far away youth that had survived many a crisis, but not this one.
MGs
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my uncle worked at fords in essex on the anglia, he got one on preferential terms and must have had the thing for 20 years
anyway he worked on the night shift and all he did was play cards with some mates in the middle of a lot of packing cases every night
to be honest i would have got bored and would have rather built cars
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Interesting prog - tried to cover much in one hour, so difficult to go in depth on any one aspect. Much of time spent on unions and worker stories and highlighted the drudgery of manual production line. I think the BBC could have made a series on this plant and cars made by it, as easily lots of material. My impression of Fords from the 1970's was that they rusted less than BL cars, but tin worm caught up with them in the end. Also remember the Cortina being far more comfortable than many other cars around at the time.
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Stories going around my company from older guys of Austin Maxi's company cars rusting within 6months to a year of New. Mate had a old Mk3 or 4 (round headlights?) Cortina in 1989 with no significant rust, but it was metallic paint (or metallic looking paint). Probably the use of more salt used in the Winter up in the north killed off 1970's cars more quickly!
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Well, it certainly brought back memories of my misspent youth.
I can remember having a tour round Dagenham in the late '60s. Two things stick in my mind:
1. Watching the chap whose job it was to put the dipsticks into the new engines... that was a boring job.
2. Examining pallets of twincam engines about to go into Lotus Cortinas (or were they Cortina Lotus, can never remember which came first?)
Edited by RobertyBob on 02/04/2009 at 17:21
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Many years ago my employer (or what it was then) had a deal where the Vauxhall company cars were replaced every 6 months. So 2 brand new cars per year. Nobody liked it. By the time the dealer had got all the small faults fixed.... new car!
Strange that you can get a brand new car every six months without cost to you and you don't want it.
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I used to work for a company which changed its cars every 12 months. 1st March was the big day. No choice of car in those days and they were mainly Cortinas or Mk 1 Cavaliers. Always 2.0 GL trim unless you had been a good boy and you got a 2.0 S Cortina. Capris were the preserve of the senior managers. Used to blag a shot of my boss's 3.0 S occasionally. One year though, when we had apparently made too much money and they needed to spend some of it the cars were replaced with Rover 3.5 SD1s. That was a good year......
;-)
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 02/04/2009 at 17:50
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'..whose job it was to put dipsticks into the engines...'
I wonder what his nick-name was?
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