Ford’s Lincoln division has chosen a rural Scottish automotive supplier, Bridge of Weir Leather, to kit out its new Chicago-built MKS flagship (due out in the US this summer) with opulent upholstery in a three-year contract worth GBP23m.
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A further GBP20m worth of business will be generated from a new Lincoln SUV later this year and it will also supply another new model from the brand later.
By clinching the deal, BoW, based west of Glasgow, has re-forged links with Ford dating back to 1911 when it provided upholstery for Model Ts assembled the automaker’s original UK plant in Trafford Park, Manchester.
Parent company Scottish Leather Group chairman Jonathan Muirhead told just-auto: “These rolling contracts are huge in terms of value and increased employment. It must be one of the biggest single Scottish automotive contracts and represents our largest North American order for many years, supplementing supplies to Volvo Heavy Trucks.”
For logistical reasons and being able to respond rapidly to specification changes, the processed leather is shipped to a Mexican unit run by Irvin Automotive, a joint venture operation, for cutting before being fitted to seats made by Lear close to Ford’s Chicago car assembly plant.
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By GlobalDataFord highlights the Scottish leather in the Lincoln’s promotional material, referring to “utilising their craftsmanship, technology and environmentally-friendly tanning techniques.”
Its literature endorses sourcing hides from Britain saying: “unlike most leather used in the US automotive industry these hides are free of brand marks, ticks and other damage allowing a beautifully natural leather to be produced.”
A major factor, which helped clinch the contracts, was Bridge of Weir Leather meeting Lincoln’s ‘guilt-free luxury’ criteria. This involves a sustainable chrome-free tanning process and building a GBP7m thermal energy plant. Waste is converted into energy with a claimed halving of the leather production processes’ carbon footprint.
Muirhead praised his “persistent” sales force, headed by sales manager Dale Wallace, for “eight years of hard slog and knocking on doors in Detroit to build relationships and meet Ford’s stringent evaluation and auditing standards. It is almost exactly 50 years since we were chosen to supply Lincoln’s 1957 two-door Continental Mark 2 coupe.”
The MKS order covers projected output of 47,000 cars a year and the predominantly female workforce will be increased by 50 to 250.
Bridge of Weir Leather’s current automotive customers include Volvo, Saab and Aston Martin.
Muirhead added: “I think we can justifiably claim to be the natural successors to Connolly Leather, which ceased trading in 2000.”
Hugh Hunston
