The Tickford name can be traced back to a coachbuilding company started in 1820 by Joseph Salmons. Known as Salmons & Sons, Carriage Works, they were situated on the grounds of Tickford Abbey, Newport Pagnell, 50 miles north of London.

At the turn of the century, Salmons & Sons became involved with building bodies onto motor driven chassis. In 1923 Salmons produced their own complete vehicle, called a NP (after Newport Pagnell) where 300 were built over a two year period.

In the 1920's, a blacksmith, in the employ of Salmons & Sons invented a gear driven mechanism for opening and closing the heavy roof sections of the popular 'Landaulette' style of the day. The system was patented as the 'Tickford All-Weather' style. In the 1930's cars became smaller and the geared mechanism was dropped but the Tickford name continued to be used for the open coachwork.

In 1942, Salmons sold the company to Ian Boswell of North Crawley and the company name first became Tickford Limited in recognition of the convertible body styles it had become most famous for.

It wasn't until after the war effort during the early 1940's, that Tickford built its first new car body, an Alvia TA 14 Drophead. This was shown at Earls Court in 1948 and between 50 and 75 were built. Prototype bodies for Daimler, Humber, Land Rover and the Healey sports car followed.

After buying Aston Martin and Lagonda car companies, David Brown combined the best features of both by fitting the Lagonda engine into the lightweight Aston Martin chassis with an aluminium body, courtesy of Tickford Ltd. This was so successful, it became the main activity for Tickford and David Brown bought the company in 1955. However, the Tickford name was dropped at this time in favour of Aston Martin Lagonda Limited.

From December 1974, Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd changed hands a number of times until Ford acquired sole control. In 1981 a separate company, Aston Martin Tickford Ltd, was set up to handle outside contract work. The name  changed in November 1989 formally to Tickford Ltd as last used in 1955.

In 1991 there was a management buyout and Tickford Ltd became owned solely by its five Directors. Also in 1991 a joint manufacturing venture, Tickford Vehicle Engineering, was formed with Ford Australia, this is supported by a division of Tickford Limited in Australia known as Tickford Asia Pacific, who carry out the majority of the product development for the joint venture.

Tickford Vehicle Engineering is a key factor in the success of the XR Series which has been one of the major products to come from the joint venture with Ford. T-Series is now a part of the Tickford lineup and will become a strong part of FTE and Tickford's future.