Hello All,

I have been doing some chasing around and have found two significant people who have worked at the Ford Sydney Homebush assembly plant building the Escorts.

The first gentleman worked there from 1972 to 1980 as Quality Control Manager.
The second from 1980 to 1982/3 as a trainee engineer.

Both are an endless supply of long interesting stories about what happened at Homebush, how the cars were assembled, the problems, the fun and the people.

If you have any particular questions about the assembly and manufacture of the Escorts from 1972 to 1982/3 please list them up here and I will pass them on for an answer.

I will probably fire the questions to them in blocks rather than a few at a time, so expect a few weeks for a response!

Hi Peter,

I wonder if these guys would be interested in attending one of Roy's Small Ford Car Club meetings in Sydney as a guest for the evening? I'm sure some interesting stories would result.

Maybe run it past them first, then contact Roy for possible dates if he is interested?

Peter B

quote:

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Originally posted by Snowhite

Hi Peter,

I wonder if these guys would be interested in attending one of Roy's Small Ford Car Club meetings in Sydney as a guest for the evening? I'm sure some interesting stories would result.

Maybe run it past them first, then contact Roy for possible dates if he is interested?

Peter B

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SFCC of NSW is definitely interested to hear of and about these guys experiences...

G'day Peter
This brought back memories. In the '80s (in a previous life as a chalkey) I took a group of school students on a field trip to our "Dagenham" (Homebush). I think the Laser was on the production line? By this time the complete drivetrains were arriving from Japan in a wooden crate to simply be raised (or dropped) into place. I remember the photos of employees and teams of the week (or month) on the walls, and they gave financial incentives for people who came up with ideas to reduce cost or increase efficiency. All a bit hazy. Wonder where all the memorobilia went? Only the factory facade left now, thankfully heritage listed. So sad that we've lost our manufacturing base. I'd love to hear more from those who were there every day!

We had a guest speaker last year that worked with Ford during the 70's, it was very interesting to hear what went on there and the cars that came in for evaluation. We'd be more than happy to have one or both of them along as guest speakers. We normally get between 30-40 members to a meeting, so there'd be plenty of questions.

Bumping a old post but hoping you still have contact with those two guys. I have a heap of questions related to original parts on Escorts. Hopefully they might possibly be able to help. Cheers