England, Australia, New Zealand Info Requested

[fordgarage]

http://www.fordgarage.com

[Henry Hopper]

Give Christ Sanders a call at the UK branch of the Early V8 Ford of America Club, he will probably have the info or will know where to point you.He is the president of the club and a very helpful guy,

Earlyv8ford.co.uk

[DavidG]

Unlike in Canada where they used unique-to-Canada engine numbers for both Model B fours and V-8 engines, Dagenham used engine numbers on their Model B engine production assigned in blocks from Dearborn and therefore had either AB, ABF, B, or BF prefixes depending on period of production followed by 5xxxxxx. A second B was added to the prefix for engine/transmission assemblies destined for use in truck chassis.

If you want the specific blocks of numbers assigned to Dagenham for the 1932 model year, I can dig them out for you as they were recorded in the engine log of the Dearborn Engine Plant.

Sorry, but the information that I have does not include Model A engine production at Dagenham. Likely the Model A information could be obtained at the Benson Ford Research Center in Dearborn.

[Mart]

Henry meant Chris Sanders, he's good, but not that good.

Mart.

[Henry Hopper]

Ha ha, I think this IPad thingy has predictive text or something.......

[ratamahata]

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I have one engine with the prefix AF, I don't remember the number now, there are some words under the serial, Ford USA or something like this, "Ford" is written with the script font...

[Tudortomnz]

If this is any help ,New Zealand started to receive some shippements from Dagenham from 1933.I have no records of any British Model A's exported to NZ before this. Ford Canada still supplied most Ford vehicles , but the British were actively pushing manufactured goods to Dominion countries to balance the primary products these markets were providing to Britain. New Zealand, Australia, Canada, even non dominion states like Argentina, could not refuse as they were dependant on the huge British market to sell their exports.

NZ received in '33, 9 English bodied sedans [ B4, small bore] plus approx. 40 heavy AA type commercial chassis, also 12 light commercial B/ Model 14 chassis. They also started to send the Model Y cars [ 550 'Baby Ford'] up to 1937 & 13 Model 62 V8 sedans, 108" chassis.
Some of these figures may not be exact, but the scale should be ; it was the Depression era.
Tom, nz

[Manuel]

Originally Posted by Tudortomnz

If this is any help ,New Zealand started to receive some shippements from Dagenham from 1933.I have no records of any British Model A's exported to NZ before this. Ford Canada still supplied most Ford vehicles
NZ received in '33, 9 English bodied sedans [ B4, small bore] plus approx. 40 heavy AA type commercial chassis, also 12 light commercial B/ Model 14 chassis. They also started to send the Model Y cars [ 550 'Baby Ford'] up to 1937 & 13 Model 62 V8 sedans, 108" chassis.
Some of these figures may not be exact, but the scale should be ; it was the Depression era.
Tom, nz

That is very interesting Tom.
Does anybody know what the poms sent to Oz I wonder? We received lots of Baby Fords but I wonder about the full size ones from the UK??

Manuel in Oz

[Tudortomnz]

Manuel, try & find an old copy of 'History of Ford in Australia' by Norm Darwin. It shows all the English Fords marketed in Australia from 1932 on. Actually, when I read the era adverts, was surprised how pro British you were! Cars had badges with ''Product of British Empire' [Model A;s & V8's] & 'British steel & Australian wood' was used in the bodywork.
Tom.

[Ian NZ]

I have supplied a picture of the Badge ' This car is a British Empire Product' which is fitted to the dashboard of my 1932 - 3/W Coupe. I have only heard of these badges being found in Canada and Australia. R.H.D dash boards have been found off some 1932 - 34 models in Canada drilled to fit these badges. I have also seen a placard on the side of the hood on an 1930's Australian built truck with similar wording on it.

[Ian NZ]

Try this

[Bick in New Zealand]

Vince,

1930 Deluxe Phaeton, body number 159-3156 Engine number AF3092004

Cheers

[Manuel]

From memory the badges on the dash boards, as well as large badges on the bonnets on some vehicles were common, on Fords and other makes in the 30s.
I think they wanted people to buy British Empire products during the depression times.

Manuel in Oz

[Mart]

As a side note, the Austins in the post WW2 years carried "Austin of England" badging.
It was called the "Export or die" era.

Mart.

[Bruce Lancaster]

Something that interests me that I do not yet grasp: How did they juggle the 2 different meanings of "AF" and "BF" in English production? Seems to me from the little I have learned that those prefixes in England could designate either a car with US type 200.5 inch engine and RHD OR a small bore English engine? A small bore AF or BF engine built in England could quite conceivably have been built with LHD for export into the continent...

[Bruce Lancaster]

So a 200.5" British engine would have simply an A or B prefix for serial?

[Bruce Lancaster]

Not exactly my question...I know about the AF engine (pretty sure Germany made no fours until later when all were B's and B developments), just want to see how Ford England (which did supply a lot to Ford Germany until they became essentially a self sufficient factory in middle thirties) stamped the serials. Did the put "A" alone at the beginning of big engine serial stamps or "AF", 200.5 engines. Either would seem logical to me as they used US supplied engines for most A production until '31 or so, so would they have been AF because they were Rouge units built up as RHD or stamped A because they were to be sold from England as normal for domestic use?
Kind of two interpretations of Ford Grammar...
And of course Ford england was presumably putting a few of both engine sizes into LHD markets on the continent...
I did some roaming in English and continental junkyards looong ago when there were still some feral old Fords in Europe and have run into this stuff in the wild (and also the fabled '35-6 4 main 60!), but in those days I had no interest in serials and of course a big or small engine could be identified visually.

[Bruce Lancaster]

I thought A engine production started in '30 or '31 in UK, but cannot remember my source...need more coffee, obviously!
Wehrmacht I think bought BB trucks of the general '32 type until 1940 (I think, from scanty information) and built B type engines upgraded in 1939 and 1942 into the '50's...their V8 trucks got updates to some 1942 specs but continued with a smattering of much earlier parts in circa 1940 type chassis.
From a picture caption from a book on Fords in German military in WWII I gleaned a REALLY damn obscure factoid: German BB's with curved headlight bar are '32s, ones built after '32 had straight bar but were still basically '32 BB's, not '33-4 type...
The truck shown was on its side in a ditch during an unfortunate vacation trip to Russia.