With the advent of the internal combustion engine, Salmons & Sons progressed into developing coachbuilt cars as early as 1898 and prospered.

[1] In 1925 they announced their Tickford "All Weather" body, a drophead with the hood mechanism operated by inserting and turning a handle in the rear quarter-panel.

With the changing fortunes of Aston Martin, the company moved into a purpose-built facility in Milton Keynes under the separate ownership of CH Industrials plc and despite carrying out a lot of unseen, "back-room" engineering projects for major manufacturers, gained most publicity from adding engineering and tuning to its coachbuilder roots allowing it to develop special products like the 140 mph, turbocharged Tickford Capri for Ford.

In 2001 the whole Tickford Group in UK, Germany, Australia and USA, was acquired by Prodrive, the British motor sport company and, in 2002, its Australian joint venture with Ford, Tickford Vehicle Engineering, was rebranded as Ford Performance Vehicles.

In the spring of 2009 the Peterborough site was closed and the work transferred to the Milton Keynes facility in Tanners Drive.

Tickford also developed Cosworth engines for Ray Mallock Racing and Ecurie Ecosse, with the latter gaining second place in the C2 Class of the 1987 World Sports Prototype Championship for Teams.

In the late 1980s Tickford designed, developed and built Formula One engines, including some with unique 5-valve cylinder heads.

A Tickford 5v version of the Judd V8 was commissioned by Camel Team Lotus for Nelson Piquet and Satoru Nakajima to use.