Ford’s Secret Warehouse Of Classic Cars

By Dave Ashton

Would you Adam and Eve it(Cockney rhyming slang for ‘believe it’), Ford have a huge secret stash of classic and standout vehicles dotted around their factory in Dagenham, England. The 1930s started facility houses everything from a model T up to present day vehicles. All of them having historical or monetary value and some of the most prized Fords produced.

With such a long rich history, it’s no surprise that Ford would have a prized collection of past models somewhere on the planet. Being a US based company it may seem that the focus should be on American cars. But, Ford have been a mainstay car manufacture in Europe seemingly forever, so it’s no surprise such an extensive collection has been built up over the years.

Anybody over the age of 40 in the UK has probably owned a Ford of some sort in the past. Escorts, the Fiesta, Focus, Capri, Mondeo, Orion, Scorpio, Ka, RS Cosworth, Sierra, Granada, Cortina and the ever reliable Transit van were part of the landscape on UK roads for many years. As a Ford fan, this may be a nice sideline of interest to see how the same company did things across the water.

The bulk of the collection features standout vehicles from Fords European lineup. Plenty of unique cars from the world of rallying, 4 cylinder classics, performance cars and special editions. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some completely US centric vehicles in there, basically old school muscle cars from the big blue oval. The place isn’t open to the public, so here are a few prized American vehicles stored at the plant.

2005 Ford GT Mk1
The Ford GT40 earnt it’s stripes by blasting past Ferrari at the 1966 LeMans. This 2005 model helped celebrate the hundredth birthday of Ford in 2003 with a 5.4-litre supercharged V8 with 550bhp and a top speed of 205 mph make the GT one powerful collectors item.

1967 Ford Mustang Mk1 GT390 Hardtop
There has to be a few Mustangs in the collection and one of the standouts is a 1967 GT390. This one was acquired by the collection in 2017 to resemble the same vehicle as in the 1968 Bullitt movie. Used to promote the 2018 Bullitt Mustang, less than 1,000 were built in 1967 with a S-Code 390cid V8 and 4-speed manual transmission(gearbox in the UK).

1963 Ford Cougar II concept car
The Cougar II was based on the Cobra SX by Shelby and also came as a convertible. Under the hood(bonnet in the UK) is a 260HP V8 pushing the two seater touring car up to 175 mph. It was meant to originally line up against the Corvette, but never really made it.

Mustang Concept Car
There has to be some modern muscle in there and this example has a 5.0 liter V8 with 410 horses and a 0-62 mph time in 4.8 seconds. A muscle car was a strange concept in Europe, unless you were a fan of US muscle cars as an import. But Ford changed that in 2016 offering the Mustang in native hand drive. Outselling many native performance vehicles, the Mustang is slowly waking up Europe to modern muscle cars.

Capri 280
The Ford Capri is sometimes referred to as the European Ford muscle car. Philip T. Clark, designer of the Ford Mustang had a hand in it’s creation. From 1968-1986 the Capri sold well and this 2.8-liter V6 version with 160 horses was one of the top performers. Ok, it wasn’t available in America, but it’s probably the nearest Europe got to its own muscle car.

 

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