When it comes to British car factories, the former Ford plant of Halewood is better known these days as a Jaguar Land Rover facility, which sees tens of thousands of Freelanders and Evoques rolling down the line each year. But back in 1963, when Ford issued this brochure dedicated to its Merseyside factory, it was the home of the Anglia, Corsair and Consul Capri.
The factory itself had been officially opened in March of that year, and was being hailed by Dagenham-based Ford as “the second great heart of the company”. Ford was especially proud of the quality of the cars built at Halewood, boasting that each one was “subject to the most stringent quality inspection throughout manufacture”. In fact, insisted the brochure, every car had to meet “over 200 check points”, including a search for leaks as “hundreds of gallons of pressurized water are sluiced over it”. How very reassuring.
