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2023 Honda Accord: A Sweet SedanThe Unknown History of Irish Car Manufacturing
Discover the rich, unknown history of Irish car manufacturing! From familiar to obscure, find out which companies came first and lasted the longest.
An In-Depth Look at Irish Car Manufacturing
It’s not as documented as some other topics, but there is a long history of Irish car makers. William Corrigan may actually be the first motor car manufacturer of Ireland. He produced a 4.5-horsepower car in 1902. Photographs of his car can be found in the museum of the Royal Irish Automobile Club in Dublin. Other car brands that built or assembled parts for their models in Ireland include Adler, Chrysler, Dodge, Ford, Hillman, Hudson, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Peugeot, Standard, Toyota, Vauxhall, and Volkswagen.
There are some stark differences in the success of each of these brands and their distribution, however. Some models were only built for a few years while some companies have successfully manufactured vehicles in Ireland for decades. Some vehicles were completely manufactured in Ireland with local materials while others were made using imported parts. Which car manufacturers had the luck of the Irish? Keep reading to find out!
The First Cars of Ireland
Chambers Motors Ltd is generally recognized as the first car manufacturer in Ireland, making cars in Belfast as early as 1904. The first model had a 6 ft. 6 in. Wheelbase. Chambers made a 7-horsepower (hp) two-cylinder vehicle with a horizontal engine. In 1905, Chambers increased it to 8 hp. The next year, it put out 10 hp. Year after year, Chambers increased horsepower and the number of cylinders. Production ended in the late 1920s when models delivered between 18 and 48 hp with a six-cylinder vertical engine.
Over the course of production, Chambers exported some vehicles to Australia and the United States. During the Great War, between 1914 and 1918, Chambers put their equipment to use to manufacture ambulances for the military. Chambers couldn’t provide ambulances with enough horsepower to meet the demands of the military, however, so only six vehicles were made overall. Instead, they turned to manufacturing aircraft components. That was actually the start of the downfall of the entire company.
The equipment Chambers was using to make aircraft parts wasn’t made for that. It quickly became worn out. When two new engine prototypes didn’t work out as planned, Chambers could only offer aging, underpowered vehicles to the car-buying public. By 1929, Chambers went out of business. The whereabouts of four Chambers cars are known today. One of them, an 8-hp model from 1908, is on display at the Ulster Museum in Belfast.
The Aylsebury, or Alesbury, automobile was one of the first cars built in Ireland. Built by the Alesbury Brothers, Daniel and John, their four-seater was first displayed at the 1907 Dublin Motor Show. It was a light car that used solid rubber tires, Irish wood, and an 8-horsepower two-cylinder engine. Except for the engine and gear box, it was completely constructed at the Eldenberry Works location in County Kings. The engine was from a Stevens engine from Stevens-Duryea in Massachusetts. Despite successfully building one of the first vehicles of Ireland, the Aylesbury was only manufactured until 1908.
The Silver Stream was another early Irish-made vehicle, built from 1907 to 1909 in Kilcullen, County Kildare. Irish railway engineer Phillip Somerville Large was responsible for the Silver Stream motor car. He designed the body, and used a modified MAN chassis to manufacture the vehicle with a six-cylinder engine. Since so few of the Silver Streams were built, they draw crowds at classic car shows. Some have been preserved in museums before being sold at auctions.
Fiat Brings a Little Bit of Italy to Ireland
It was on November 30, 1923 that Fiat Ireland officially formed as a subsidiary of Fiat. Though Fiat Ireland had been established, it wasn’t making cars at the time. Instead, Fiat Ireland imported and sold Fiat vehicles. Two decades after Fiat Ireland was established, the company enlisted W.J. Henderson Ltd. to assemble vehicles for sale in the country. That relationship continued for almost 10 years, lasting until 1956.
After a decade without any local manufacturing being done, Fiat Ireland built its own assembly plant in Chapelizod, a village within the city of Dublin. Construction began in 1966 and was completed in a timespan of about two years. It began churning out models like the Fiat 600, 850, 1100, 124, 127, and 128. Over 5,000 units were completed in the first year of operation.
Those numbers steadily increased toward the 10,000 mark in the 1970s, despite the oil crisis that was happening. Sales peaked at 12,219 in 1978. As the sales grew, so did the plant. Fiat moved it to Ballyfermot, another suburb of Dublin. Unfortunately, less than 10 years later, Fiat ended production in Ireland in 1984. Although they only sold 4,293 units that year, 141,158 units had been made and sold at the Fiat Ireland plant since 1968 when it started operations.
Ford’s First Factory Outside of North America
We can talk about a lot of other manufacturers in Ireland, but the brand with perhaps the most history and the most success is Ford. Established in 1917, Henry Ford & Son Ltd was the Irish subsidiary of Ford Motor Company. This was the first venture outside of North America that Ford initiated. Why Ireland? Well, it may have been due to his family history. Henry Ford had ancestors in County Cork, Ireland. His grandfather, John Ford, was born near the town of Ballinascarty.
In fact, that’s where Ford constructed a factory to build tractors. A goal was set: the manufacturing plant, built along a marina, was supposed to build 20,000 tractors a year. The first one was completed on July 3, 1919. The tractor brand known as Fordson made 303 tractors in 1919. Just a year later, 3,626 tractors were built, but it cost Ford £327,000 between new equipment, foundry expansion, and a machine shop. These tractors were shipped to nearby Romania, Copenhagen, and Cadiz.
In 1920, Ford utilized the County Cork plant to produce parts for Ford of Britain, supplying Manchester with cast-iron components required to build the Model T. Since Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom, Ford didn’t need to pay taxes on vehicles that were shipped to Britain. The idea kept the County Cork plant going strong, producing Fordson tractors and parts that Ford of Britain needed to build more Model T’s. By 1922, more than 2,200 Fordson tractors were being built at the Cork plant.
However, Ireland officially earned its independence in December 1922. Since it was no longer part of the British Empire, any Fordson tractors that were built in the Cork plant and sent to Britain would be taxed. That wasn’t very economical at the time, so, instead, Fordson production moved to Dearborn, Michigan, and the Cork plant quit making tractors. In total, 7,605 Fordson tractors were built at the County Cork plant. That wasn’t the end of the plant, though.
The Cork plant started building engines and rear axles that could be delivered to England, France, and Germany and used to manufacture more Model T’s. Parts for the Model A were also delivered to those countries as well as Japan. Tractor production briefly resumed at the Cork plant in 1929, making it the only Ford tractor factory in the world at the time.
After the short-lived second round of Fordson tractor-making, the County Cork plant was exclusively an assembly plant, all the way up to World War II. Ford was the brand to buy in Ireland in 1946, when the war ended. Between 25% and 35% of the Irish car market went to Ford. Production and sales continued steadily for Ford in Ireland.
1967 marked the 50-year anniversary of the Cork plant first opening its doors, but by that time over 1,000 employees were working there, and the plant needed more than a few updates. Ford’s European division decided to invest more than £2,000,000 into the plant for building upgrades and equipment updates. £500,000 alone were invested in a modern body-finishing department that provided undercoating and bases for final paint coatings.
The vision for the Cork plant didn’t stop there! New light-alloy buildings were put up over a 117,000 sq. ft. Area. An entirely new assembly line was placed there so that workers could build heavy-duty commercial vehicles on one line and lighter vehicles on the other. A warehouse was also part of the renovation, storing over 23,000 parts and accessories.
Over a dozen different vehicles were made at the new and improved 33-acre Cork plant, including the Ford Cortina, Ford Transit van, Ford D Series Truck, and the Ford Escort. Henry Ford II visited the Marina in June 1977 to speak about future plans for the County Cork plant. When another high-profile name, Pope John Paul II, toured Ireland in 1979, it was the Cork factory that built him a pope mobile.
Ford invested £10,000,000 on plant upgrades in 1982 so that it could start assembling the Ford Sierra, a mid-size family car. Despite the investment, other businesses in the area were closing up shop. When Dunlop tire factory, near the County Cork plant, closed it put hundreds of people out of work. Other businesses along the marina started shutting down as well.
By the 1980s, the Cork plant was losing approximately £10,000,000 each year. To make matters worse, it was underperforming. While the Cork plant was making 400 cars a week, the Ford Genk plant in Belgium was producing more than 6,000 cars a week.
No longer able to withstand the financial loses, Ford of Europe announce the Cork plant’s closure on January 17, 1984. On July 13, 1984, the Ford manufacturing plant along the Marina in County Cork turned the lights off and shut down the machines. 800 locals lost their jobs that day.
These days Ford isn’t as dominant as it once was. Despite nearly 70 years of operation in Ireland, without a strong vehicle-manufacturing presence other automakers, like Toyota, Volkswagen, and Hyundai, established themselves as modern-day favorites. As for the plant itself?
Nissan and Toyota Were There, Too
Toyota Ireland was founded on May 24, 1972 in Dublin. It was founded by Stephen O’Flaherty, who had worked for Ford Motor Company in County Cork in the 1920s. After working for McCairns Motors, O’Flaherty started Motor Manufacturers Ltd, which eventually assembled and distributed the Volkswagen Beetle in small quantities.
Toyota of Ireland changed hands half a dozen times within the first decade. All the while the company was producing cars like the Toyota Corolla, Starlet, Carina, Celica, Cressida, and Crown. Parts were imported from Toyota and were then used to piece the cars together. The company started importing completed vehicles in the late 1970s. Production ended in 1983, but Toyota Ireland still imports vehicles and sells them to this day.
Nissan Ireland also started up in Dublin, but they were about five years behind Toyota. It launched on February 2, 1977. A Kuwaiti businessman by the name of Barrack Al-Babtain, and his family, joined with a company named the Tom McLoughlin Group to start Nissan Ireland. Together they imported Nissan parts for the vehicles that were marketed as Datsun models. The only Nissan vehicle that was produced in Ireland and marketed as such was the Nissan Sunny. Nissan production ended in 1984, a year after Toyota ended. The company is still active, though, importing and selling Nissan vehicles.
The Reason for So Many 1984 Closures
Toyota ended production in 1983. Ford, Nissan, and Fiat all ended production in 1984. This was just a few years after the renovations were made to the Ford County Cork manufacturing facility, too. What was it about the mid-80s that caused so many closures? Taxes.
Several large automobile companies, like Fiat, and British Leyland, to avoid taxes on cars that were imported into Ireland and England, when they were both part of the United Kingdom. However, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Denmark all joined the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973. This was a regional organization created in 1957 with the goal of fostering economic relationships among member states.
As part of the 1973 deal, import taxes were going to be lifted in 1985. That meant automakers could produce vehicles in other European countries and import them to Ireland. There was no longer a need to manufacture them in Ireland itself.
Don’t Forget About the DeLorean
Another familiar brand with ties to Ireland is DeLorean Motor Company. The DeLorean isn’t a true Irish export, though. It was financed by Americans, designed by the British, and partially built in the United Kingdom-portion of Northern Ireland.
Like other automakers, DeLorean struck a deal to make units in Ireland. In 1978, construction started on a 660,000 sq. ft. plant in Dunmurry, a suburb of Belfast. After 16 months, it was ready to open as the Delorean Motor Cars, Ltd. facility. Production was set to begin in 1979, but budget issues and engineering delays pushed that date back two years. Finally, in 1981 the plant started rolling DeLorean models off the assembly line.
Unfortunately, there were a few problems with those DeLorean vehicles, as you know if you read our piece on The Edsel and Other Epic Automotive Flops. Many of the workers at the DMCL plant didn’t have much experience in their roles. As a result, quality assurance plants in California, New Jersey, and Michigan noted construction issues like ill-fitted body panels and alternators with higher-than-normal outputs. With more training, some of those issues were resolved, but others persisted.
Eventually, the Delorean Motor Company went bankrupt in 1982. Closing the DMC Dunmurry plant in 1982 resulted in 2,500 lost jobs and over $100 million in investments. When all was said and done, approximately 9,000 DeLorean cars were made in the 23 months that the Dunmurry plant was operational. The facility didn’t go to waste, though. By 1989 Montupet, a French automotive supplier, started manufacturing cast aluminum cylinder heads in Dunmurry. It’s still in use today with more than 600 employees working there daily.
Modern Car Manufacturing in Ireland
There’s not a lot of automobile manufacturing happening in Ireland today. There are some 50 or so Ford dealerships. Hyundai, Nissan, Toyota, Kia, Škoda, and Peugeot all have a presence there, too. Even though there’s no automobile boom like parts of the 1900s, Ireland has plants that assemble components for interior lighting units, bumpers for Bentley, and driving assistance systems for Audi, BMW, Ford, Land Rover, Nissan, Volkswagen, and Volvo. Some Ireland manufacturing facilities also contribute to the making of cooling systems for electric vehicle batteries found in Tesla and BMW models. A lot of those manufacturing plants are still being put to use to help build cars, but it’s in ways other than full-on vehicle manufacturing.
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