Another development site at Aveley had been opened in 1956 which made prototype cars and spare parts, and closed in 2004.

In the late 1960s Dunton worked on an experimental electric car, first shown on 7 June 1967, and called the Ford Comuta.

[4] On 10 May 1971 Peter Walker opened a £1 million engine emissions laboratory at Dunton, the largest of its type in Europe.

Many of the RS models had the bodywork made at Karmann in Osnabrück, Germany; the vehicles had Pirelli tyres.

[6] By 1984 staff at Dunton were conducting video-conferences with colleagues at Merkenich, using the ECS-1 satellite, and enabled by British Telecom International.

[7] In 1988 the site worked with Prof Paul Shayler of the University of Nottingham mechanical engineering department[8] The Sierra Sapphire was launched in a £228m development in February 1987, with Clive Ennos and Andy Jacobson at Dunton.

[9] A £10m 53,000 sq ft R&D Electronics Technical Centre was built from 1987, to open in early 1989, to develop spark plugs, fuel pumps, and engine management systems.

[10][11] In 1988 Dunton prepared the way for design of the Mondeo (codename CDW27) by pioneering, in collaboration with Merkenich, the Worldwide Engineering Release System (WERS).

[14] In 1995 Dunton, in collaboration with the University of Southampton, developed a device which is capable of detecting different types of plastic (for recycling) using the triboelectric effect, including polypropylene, polyethylene, nylon and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS).

In 2020 during the medical ventilators crisis generated by COVID-19, a Dunton Manufacturing team participated in VentilatorUKChallenge consortium and had a major contribution to deliver over 10,000 units to the NHS in just 12 weeks.

Dunton houses the main design team of Ford of Europe, alongside its Merkenich Technical Centre in Cologne.