Over the past few years, we’ve covered the history of engines ranging from the venerable BMC A-Series through to the Rolls-Royce L-Series, but there’s another unit that was at the core of the British motor industry for nearly half a century. In its various forms, the Ford Kent unit powered many Blue Ovals, specialised sports cars and a number of competition vehicles, and we think that’s worthy of celebration.
Firstly, let’s clear up that name. The Kent label was not used within Ford until later, but it is now retrospectively applied to the engine fitted to the new, fourth-generation Anglia in 1959. However, the story goes back even further. In 1956, Ford UK had just announced the second-generation Consul/Zephyr/Zodiac cars, which used the company’s totally conventional overhead valve engines: so far this has been its only all post-war new design. Their best seller at the time was the small Anglia/Prefect 100E range, which relied on old-style sidevalve four-cylinder engines of 1172cc, producing just 36bhp.
At that time, car assembly was still within the original Dagenham factory complex. The cars’ styling was UK-based but heavily influenced by Ford USA thinking, while engineering was still in cramped old buildings at Dagenham. With demand booming, the whole business was overstretched, and bursting at the seams.
From then on, a vast modernisation programme was initiated. Not only would Ford UK commission a vast new PTA (paint-trim-assembly) assembly building alongside the A13, but it would also engineer an all-new Anglia 105E project (for launch in 1959), and set about the design of a new, small, overhead-valve four-cylinder engine family. Ford was prepared to spend
