XIIVVX
Active member
My friend Keith Jillings, a guy I was proud to know, died last week and is buried tomorrow.
"So what?" I hear you say.
Well in the second half of the last century Ford Motor Company (Fomoco) in the UK was run by bean counters. British Leyland was run by engineers. Nothing happened at Ford without getting the nod and signature of the head honchos of the Accounting Function.
The engine design team worked with Yamaha to produce a rather neat little motor, part of the deal was that Ford would take a quantity of these. There was apparently much discussion as to what the hell they could do with them, one of the ideas being to take a Fiesta platform and build a natty little coupe on it, powered by this 1700cc Ford/Yamaha engine.
But, of course, nothing moved without the say so of the money men.
Keith at that time was a very, very senior money man at Dagenham, and the project crossed his desk (I'm guessing with the project team hopping from foot to foot somewhere in the building)
He thought about it.
He liked it.
He signed it off for production
I'll be at his funeral tomorrow - Friday 1st April (regrettably not a joke). It would be nice if a few of you could, around noon, give a brief thought to one of the team that made Puma what it was and is.
"So what?" I hear you say.
Well in the second half of the last century Ford Motor Company (Fomoco) in the UK was run by bean counters. British Leyland was run by engineers. Nothing happened at Ford without getting the nod and signature of the head honchos of the Accounting Function.
The engine design team worked with Yamaha to produce a rather neat little motor, part of the deal was that Ford would take a quantity of these. There was apparently much discussion as to what the hell they could do with them, one of the ideas being to take a Fiesta platform and build a natty little coupe on it, powered by this 1700cc Ford/Yamaha engine.
But, of course, nothing moved without the say so of the money men.
Keith at that time was a very, very senior money man at Dagenham, and the project crossed his desk (I'm guessing with the project team hopping from foot to foot somewhere in the building)
He thought about it.
He liked it.
He signed it off for production
I'll be at his funeral tomorrow - Friday 1st April (regrettably not a joke). It would be nice if a few of you could, around noon, give a brief thought to one of the team that made Puma what it was and is.
