page_title: Automotive industry in Malaysia
section_title: The reign of Ford Malaya
hierarchical_section_title: Automotive industry in Malaysia / History / 1780s–1950s / The reign of Ford Malaya
caption_attribution_description: Old Ford Motor Factory. Taken by User:Sengkang of ENglish.Wikipedia in Mar 2007.
context_page_description: The automotive industry in Malaysia consists of 27 vehicle producers and over 640 component manufacturers. The Malaysian automotive industry is the third largest in Southeast Asia, and the 23rd largest in the world, with an annual production output of over 500,000 vehicles. The automotive industry contributes 4% or RM 40 billion to Malaysia's GDP, and employs a workforce of over 700,000 throughout a nationwide ecosystem.
  The automotive industry in Malaysia traces its origins back to the British colonial era. Ford Malaya became the first automobile assembly plant in Southeast Asia upon its establishment in Singapore in 1926. The automotive industry in post-independence Malaysia was established in 1967 to spur national industrialisation. The government offered initiatives to encourage the local assembly of vehicles and manufacturing of automobile components. In 1983, the government became directly involved in the automotive industry through the establishment of national car company Proton, followed by Perodua in 1993.
context_section_description: The automobile industry in British Malaya was pioneered by the Ford Motor Company. Ford sought to capitalise on existing Anglo-American ties to expand globally, and Malaya was recognised for its strategic potential as a regional export base. Ford's entry into Malaya was spearheaded by Ford Canada, an affiliate of Ford USA. Ford Canada was set up in 1904 to capitalise on its British colony status, which allowed it to export automobiles duty-free to the various Empire colonies. Ford Canada appointed Dodge & Seymour to handle sales in Asia, and the first Ford models were shipped into Malaya in 1909. Malayan Ford sales grew in the following years, and Ford Canada decided to take direct control of its Malayan operations in 1926.
  In November 1926, the Ford Motor Company of Malaya Ltd. (Ford Malaya) was incorporated in Singapore, and the company set up a small garage in a two-storey shop house on Anson Road. The garage carried out wheel-fitting and touching up for Model T units between 1926 and 1929. In January 1930, Ford Malaya moved operations to a warehouse in Prince Edward Road, where they carried out more sophisticated semi-knock down (SKD) assembly. The new plant assembled SKD kits which were imported from Ford Canada and Ford England. Ford's market share in British Malaya peaked at 80% in 1939.
  In April 1941, Ford Malaya moved operations to their all-new assembly plant in Bukit Timah, Singapore. The 1941 Ford Malaya factory became the first fully-fledged automobile assembly plant in Southeast Asia. Complete-knock down (CKD) body assembly commenced in October 1941. However, World War II broke out in Malaya just two months later, and Singapore fell to the invading Japanese Army in February 1942. The Ford Malaya plant became the venue where British General Percival formally surrendered to General Yamashita of Japan. During the occupation of Singapore, the Japanese used the Ford plant to assemble Nissan and Toyota trucks for the military. Following Japan's surrender in 1945, the British army reacquired the plant and returned it to Ford Malaya in 1946, and production recommenced in April 1947.
  Between 1926 and 1965, Ford Malaya stood as the sole automobile assembler in Singapore. Throughout its history, Ford Malaya would export its produce to British Malaya (later West Malaysia), British Borneo (later East Malaysia and Brunei), Siam (later Thailand), the Dutch East Indies (later Indonesia), Burma, India and Pakistan. Ford Malaya had imported SKD and CKD kits from the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany and Australia respectively. Ford Malaya produced over 150,000 automobiles over the decades, and finally closed down in 1980. The government of Singapore would later gazette the old Ford factory as a national monument in February 2006.
caption: The former Ford Malaya plant in modern day Singapore
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A520", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2007:03:16 16:29:17", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2548", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3947", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:03:16 16:29:17", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:03:16 16:29:17", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "277/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "11/4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "93/16", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1200", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "1600", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1200", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1860", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "50000/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "50000/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}