Edwin Foden began his career in 1856 at the Elworth engineering firm Plant & Hancock, near Sandbach, and became a partner in what was renamed Edwin Foden Sons & Co. in 1876. Foden made stationary engines and from 1880 traction engines, and after 1896 built a series of steam wagons, one of which took part in the War Office’s 1901 lorry trials, finishing second overall to Thornycroft. Foden steam wagons were built for over 30 years, the last in 1934.
Foden’s board resisted diesel, and Edwin Richard Foden left in 1932 to found ERF. Foden then moved quickly, and its F1 of 1931 is regarded as the first commercially successful diesel lorry. It built its own two-stroke FD6 diesel, made buses and coaches until 1956, and in 1962 the S24 became the first British mass-produced lorry with a tilting cab, in glass fibre, along with the S21, nicknamed “Spaceship”, “Sputnik” and “Mickey Mouse”. In 1969 Foden sold in Portugal as “Podens”, after its name proved a rude word there.
A vast new factory built in the early 1970s coincided with a market collapse, and Foden needed government support in 1974. Paccar bought it in 1980, and after Paccar took over Leyland Trucks in 1998 production moved there and switched to rebadged DAFs. The last Foden, an 8×4 rigid, was delivered to the British Commercial Vehicle Museum in July 2006.
