been 100 engines in one day. Immediately after the war the site repaired and overhauled Merlin and Griffon engines, and continued to manufacture spare parts. Finally, following the production of the Rolls-Royce Avon turbojet and others, the factory was closed in 2005. Manchester The Ford Motor Company was asked to produce Merlins at Trafford Park, Stretford, near Manchester, and building work on a new factory was started in May 1940 on a site. Built with two distinct sections to minimise potential bomb damage, it was completed in May 1941 and bombed in the same month. At first, the factory had difficulty in attracting suitable labour, and large numbers of women, youths and untrained men had to be taken on. Despite this, the first Merlin engine came off the production line one month later and it was building the engine at a rate of 200 per week by 1943, at which point the joint factories were producing 18,000 Merlins per year. In his autobiography Not much of an Engineer, Sir Stanley Hooker states: "... once the great Ford factory at Manchester started production, Merlins came out like shelling peas ...". Some 17,316 people worked at the Trafford Park plant, including 7,260 women and two resident doctors and nurses. Merlin production started to run down in August 1945, and finally ceased on 23 March 1946. Total Merlin production at Trafford Park was 30,428. Packard V-1650 As the Merlin was considered to be so important to the war effort, negotiations were started to establish an alternative production line outside the UK. Rolls-Royce staff visited North American automobile manufacturers to select one to build the Merlin in the U.S. or Canada. Henry Ford rescinded an initial offer to build the engine in the U.S. in July 1940, and the Packard Motor Car Company was selected to take on the $130,000,000 Merlin order (equivalent to $ in dollars). Agreement was reached in September 1940, and the first Packard-built engine, a Merlin XX designated the V-1650-1, ran in August 1941. Total Merlin production by Packard was 55,523. Six development engines were also made by Continental Motors, Inc. Variants This is a list of representative Merlin variants, describing some of the mechanical changes made during development of the Merlin. Engines of the same power output were typically assigned different model numbers based on supercharger or propeller gear ratios, differences in cooling system or carburettors, engine block construction,