The sprawling Peoples Ford dealership in Prescot, a west Liverpool suburb, last year hoisted a new name onto its distinctive teepee structure: BYD.

A little farther towards the Mersey and even closer to Ford’s Halewood transmission and e-motor plant, Peoples Ford Speke was shrunk down at the same time in order to make space for another Chinese newcomer: Omoda/Jaecoo.

When the Peoples Ford dealer group was established back in 1983, Ford was the UK’s largest brand by far, with 29% of the market. 

The Escort Mk3 – built in Halewood in the plant now belonging to JLR – sat astride the charts ahead of the Cortina in second.

But the world is now a very different place. In the first nine months, Ford was only the UK’s fourth biggest brand, with a 5.8% share.

Peoples – named for the accessibility of the pioneering Ford Model T – made the decision last year to end its 40-year solus relationship with Ford. “Ford's decision to stop Fiesta production and go all in on electric vehicles has proved to be challenging,” said chairman Brian Gilda last year. “The decision to work with BYD and Omoda/Jaecoo… will broaden our offering to the market place.” 

Others are having to do the same as Ford works to hit its goal for this year of halving its dealer network in the UK from 400 in 2020.

Gilda’s decision proved prescient. The combined UK market share of BYD and Chery-owned Omoda/Jaecoo in September beat that of Ford, underlining the seriousness of the threat presented by the Chinese to established volume players like Ford.

Meanwhile, Ford is shrinking further. November will be the end of production of the Focus, marking the last time a vehicle will leave Ford’s Saarlouis plant in Germany. It follows out of the door the Fiesta, S-Max and Galaxy in 2023 and the Mondeo in 2021.

The UK remains Ford’s largest European market – just – ahead of Germany. But in the region overall, Ford has gone from being the second biggest brand after Volkswagen, with sales of just over one million cars and a share of 7% in 2015, to 12th last year at a share of 3.7%, with sales below half a million, according to figures from European automotive industry group ACEA. 

In fact, last year Ford’s European sales fell to the same level as the company achieved in the UK alone in 1980.

Ford’s aim has been to reverse a chronic run of unprofitability in the region by moving from being a ‘generalist’ brand selling cars at tight or negative margins to one with fewer but theoretically more profitable ‘hero’ models.

Ford’s stability and size used to be underpinned by multiple models but now its passenger car sales are mainly resting on the success of the Puma, the UK’s best-selling car in the nine months to the end of September at 41,531, according to the SMMT. Its next best-selling model, the Kuga, was less than half that, at 18,827 with the Focus in third.

In vans, of course, it’s a different matter. Ford has taken the top three spots in the first nine months in the UK, led by the Transit Custom with 38,185, followed by the larger Transit and the Ranger pick-up. Ford’s successful Transit strategy has been underpinned by low-cost manufacturing in Turkey, a fruitful partnership with Otosan in the country and an iron grip on the market that so far has experienced little in the way of disruption from China or Japan or Korea.

Ford’s success in vans is in contrast to its car strategy. Sales of the VW-based Explorer and related Capri electric SUVs – two of the new ‘hero cars’ - have been sluggish to the point that Ford announced it would cut 1000 jobs at the plant in Cologne, Germany, that builds them on moving workers to a single shift in January.

All eyes are now on the strategy to be enacted by new Ford of Europe president Jim Baumbick. Baumbick, a US development engineer who did a stint overseeing the Focus and Kuga in Cologne, is the first to hold that title since the UK’s Stuart Rowley exited in 2022, signifying perhaps a renewed focus on Ford’s European product strategy. 

First on the schedule is a new model due to come out of Ford’s plant in Valencia, Spain, in 2027. So far, all Ford will say is it’s a “multi-energy vehicle” but Autocar understands the new model will be an SUV slightly smaller than the Kuga that essentially replaces the Focus and rivals VW’s successful T-Roc. It’s expected to offer hybrid and plug-in hybrid drivetrains and possibly electric as well.

A renewed focus on small cars in Europe could also persuade Ford to expand its relationship with VW to offer a Fiesta-badged version of the ID Polo electric supermini due next year.

The Kuga – currently the only model to be built at the Valencia plant – will also be under review as it approaches its sixth year in the service next year. 

The plug-in hybrid version has been essential to Ford’s CO2 strategy for a while now, but with a 14.4kWh battery giving a claimed driving range of 41 miles, the car will no longer be competitive under new European rules that increase the assumed combustion engine driving time, thereby reducing the CO2 figure and cancelling some tax benefits.

The Kuga is also under threat from the Chinese brands embraced by the likes of Peoples and other dealers. They  offer cheaper plug-in hybrid SUVs like the Jaecoo 7 and BYD Seal U, both of which have this year overtaken the Kuga – once the UK’s biggest-selling PHEV. 

The new Ford SUV out of Valencia has the incredibly difficult task of challenging the Chinese on price while differentiating itself from Ford’s already quite broad range of SUVs. The brand remains strong, but the question is whether it's strong enough in the UK to keep hold of buyers who have proved more than willing to experiment with new brands in return for more kit and cost savings.