Truck & Driver UK – July 2019

Truck & Driver July 2019^43

BRITISH TRUCKS

moved to Germany and Austria.

ERF’s office-based activities

continued and, in an ironical

twist, it relocated to Foden’s old

headquarters – the Edwin Foden

Building in Sandbach, perhaps a

final recognition of the shared

heritage of the two brands.

But merging identities and

engineering was always going to

be a challenge, particularly for

such an iconic brand as ERF.

And so it proved. ERF

volumes begun to slide

dramatically, falling to just 669 in

2005 and 113 in 2008. So it was

no surprise to anyone that in

August 2009, MAN announced

that it was no longer economically

viable to manufacture and market

the ERF brand.

No one could have fought

harder to survive than ERF. But

truck manufacturing is a tough

business – and even the

strongest goodwill could not have

kept the brand from the cost

realities of business in the 2000s.

Foden

Following mid-1970s financial

worries, Foden had returned to

profitability on the back of military

contract volumes, only to fall into

receivership and be bought by

Paccar in 1980.

Military contracts can’t provide

the bread and butter road

transport volumes needed to

thrive though, and Foden was

beginning to struggle in the face

of stronger, more innovative

European competition. The

company had a solid reputation

in construction vehicles,

eight-wheelers in particular, but a

severe early 1980s economic

downturn hit Foden’s traditional

market sectors particularly hard.

Demand for eight-wheelers fell

50% between 1979 and 1982,

with Foden volumes falling 63%

in the same timeframe.

Paccar is renowned for sound

financial stewardship,

however – and by cutting

costs and overheads,

The Alpha was, for many, the ultimate eight-wheeler

Morrison’s took a large number of Alphas,

Foden’s biggest-ever fleet order