What it means the letters "CKD"

[M38CDNBill]

Hello all,

A Belgian friend of mine asked me what it means the three letters CKD. He has the U.S. Gov TM book for the Ford truck 1.5 ton 4x2 CKD (model 218TF) and would like to know what those letters mean.

Cheers

[Edwin Wand]

In the automotive industry, CKD means "complete knock down". ie a disassembled vehicle put into a big wooden box and shipped to an assembly plant. eg 15cwts to England, Australia.

Presumably that is the situation in this case

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Just to set the record straight, CKD means Completely Knocked Down:

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

CKD: Completely Knocked Down. CKD should not be confused with trucks being encased, after first being 'knocked down' as much as considered practical. CKD was restricted to destinations where the manufacturers had proper assembly plants. CKD entailed the supply of parts which could not - or not economically - be produced locally, supplemented by parts which could. Besides packing methods for trucks that had to be reassembled on arrival, the CKD-pack method was also used but this entailed parts and components which had not been assembled before and then dismantled for shipment. They comprised the necessary numbers of subassemblies and parts for a given quantity of chassis which would be assembled in much the same way as it was done in the Canadian factory.

[Jon Skagfeld]

Another similar expression meaning the same thing was KDF...Knocked Down Flat.

[Bill Murray]

Just to keep the conversation animated, there were at least two other terms used both then and now.

SKD is the letter symbol for "Semi knocked down" and apparently referred to vehicles etc. that were closer to completion than CKD vehicles.

I have also seen the term PKD, "Partially knocked down", which may be another way of describing the SKD situation.

I do know that when I was working for Volvo in Peru, the law that gave us exclusive rights to sell trucks over 3 tonnes was based on a very complicated CKD set up.

We would receive shipments based on a "bill of materiels" that corresponded to whatever type vehicle was involved and that was matched with an assembly sequence set of paperwork for that vehicle. In most cases, the cabin and body were locally produced as were a lot of parts like glass, tyres etc.

The local content and the assembly labour were to assure as much Peruvian content and local labour input as possible. I would like to say here that the combination of a very dedicated Swedish plant management and very dedicated Peruvian assembly staff resulted in some pretty damn good trucks and busses.

Certainly better than the CBU (Completely built up) trucks that were supplied to the then Communist Regime of Pres. Velasco by the then Soviet Union.

My office window overlooked the Pan American Highway and I used to laugh at the number of Russian prime movers, trucks and armoured cars that broke down within my view as they moved up and down the Highway.

Sorry for the long post, but the concept continued long after WWII and continues to this day in many countries.

Bill

[Marc Montgomery]

The cargo van versions of the daimler-benz "Sprinter" vans, are completely assembled in Germany, then taken apart as CKD and shipped to US where they are reassembled. This is to avoid a big tax. The passenger versions are not subject to this tax and so are shipped as finished units.