The first Ford subsidiary company in Romania was founded in Bucharest in 1931 and functioned until 1948 when it was nationalized by the Communist authorities.

On December 8, 1920, Collin & Co. requested on behalf of the Ford Motor Company the permission to build an assembly plant in Romania.

Unfortunately, Vintilă Brătianu, who was "notoriously anti-American", rejected the proposal to the regret of the people directly involved as well as the public opinion.

[6] In October 1927, William G. Collins (in the future, assistant manager in Alexandria, Egypt) renewed the proposal for establishing an assembly plant in Constanța.

[5] This was followed by the establishment of an assembly line in Bucharest in 1932, after the conclusion of the negotiations between King Carol II and Henry Ford.

[6] On May 6, 1936, the Government reduced the privileges granted to Ford, thus the number of imported units dropped to 100; the names of the parts were individually identified, such as paint, valve oil.

After the war, in 1948, the company was nationalized, and changed its activity to become Automatica in 1960, a manufacturer of electrical equipment and automation.

This happened on the background of the growing market for the SUV segment in Europe, and brought an investment of €200 million to the factory.

The same year, Ford Otosan announced that the production will be increased and electric car models will also be produced.

[4][22] In 2024, the company received a loan of 435 million euros from a consortium of banks intended to expand the investments into equipment, installations and engineering area of the Craiova factory.