A MOTOR dealership in Poole is spanning 100 years of automotive history.

English Ford is now home to a 1917 Model T Ford – the first car ever to be mass-produced – as the manufacturer celebrates 100 years in the UK.

The black Model T – Henry Ford once famously said that buyers could have the car in any colour, as long as it was black – arrived when Foray Group, which owns the dealership, bought a showroom in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, where the car was kept.

It is now a permanent fixture in Poole and the MD of Ford of Britain, Nigel Sharp, was invited down to have a look.

He said: “We’re very proud that we have celebrated 100 years in Britain.

“To make a business last that long, it’s because Henry Ford was a great innovator – given the credit for creating the production line – and the Model T was very much his baby.

“His whole philosophy was to try to put the world on wheels and make personal mobility accessible to everybody.

“In many ways he was very far-sighted and a lot of that heritage is still with us.”

Chris Yoxon, MD of the Foray Group, added: “It’s had a lot of interest. |“The thing that’s |surprising about it |is the advances in technology.

“When you look in the engine bay and the change from that to current cars, it’s quite incredible.

“It’s also not very straightforward to drive.”

The Model T was the first car that Ford built in Britain when production started at its Old Trafford plant in 1913.