Tuesday 19 January 2016

Car transporter ship back at Port of Ramsgate

The Port of Ramsgate welcomed its first car transporter ship today (Tuesday 19 January) marking the start of a new port operation by transport and logistics company GEFCO UK Ltd.

The Autopremier arrived in Ramsgate at 05:45 transporting 1000 cars from Zeebrugge, Belgium using one of the Port’s existing Ro-Ro (roll on roll off) berths.

GEFCO import and distribute 500,000 vehicles annually through UK ports for several major vehicle manufacturers.

Under a licence which has been granted by Port owners, Thanet District Council, GEFCO have commenced a new operation to import and store cars at the Port of Ramsgate prior to onward distribution around the UK.

Ramsgate Harbour has a history of car importation going right back to the 1960s which was continued when the port was constructed in the early 1980s.

Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Enterprise Services, Cllr Hunter Stummer-Schmertzing, said: “It’s fantastic to see another business operating out of the Port of Ramsgate. This new operation uses the Port’s existing infrastructure and a portion of the freight and car lanes, all of which are ready to accommodate this new business, without compromising additional new ferry opportunities. This is a great message that the Port of Ramsgate is open and ready to do business and that the industry is recognising the potential opportunities that our facilities have to offer.”


GEFCO is pleased to be working with the Port of Ramsgate to add more flexibility in import solutions available to its customers.

The above was the council's press release and photo, on of their best and most usable and below how Ramsgate car imports were done in the 60s

Anyone able to identify the car?

5 comments:

  1. Sounds like a very positive development.

    Not sure about the car in the photo -an Austin perhaps?

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    1. If the car was an Austin does that mean that Ramsgate was used to export cars in the 60's?

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    2. I think it's just a ferry from before the roll on/roll off days - not export.

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    4. Echo Dave. Having had a proper look at the picture I think the car is a Hillman Minx Californian made 1953 to 56, the other cars in the picture look to be 1950s so I guess the picture dates from around then. The Dover to Calais drive on ferries started in 1953 so perhaps the cars to and from Ramsgate went somewhere else, a long time ago now and I doubt anyone knows the answer anymore.

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Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.