I went looking for motorcraft plugs for my 87 Lincoln. Three major parts stores said there is no more motocraft, its all now autolite. Can I assume that an autolite plug is 100% the same as the motorcraft plug that was installed at the factory in 1987? Are the new Ford/Lincoln cars now assembled with Autolite plugs? What happened to Motocraft Co?

Not true. A short history lesson - Autolite was originally an independent company that made ignition system parts, including sparkplugs. In the late 50's / Early 60's Ford bought the company. The Feds decided this was not acceptable (even though GM owned Delco) and forced Ford to sell Autolite in the late 60's / early 70's. For a short period Ford was required to purchase parts from Autolite (otherwise the brand would go broke). As soon as this restriction was lifted Ford created there own brand for aftermarket parts in the US and called it Motorcraft (I am fuzzy as to whether or not this was already a name used in Europe). The Autolite "brand" has been sold several times. It is now owned by Honeywell, along with Fram, and Prestone, and who knows what else. Autolite plugs are an alternative to Motorcraft plugs, but Motorcraft is still very much in the aftermarket spark plug business. See and . I would not use Autolite plugs in my 30 year old lawn mower. Ed

Is motorcraft now autolite?

Sep 24, 2008 24 Replies

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Thomas Tornblom 17 years ago

You mean Bosch Platinums?

I've tested those once, 30 years ago, and quickly threw them away as pure junk.

I have excellent experience with Bosch parts otherwise. Perhaps mostly due to having german cars as daily drivers.

I have had excellent experience with NGK spark plugs since the 60:s, and I try to get them for everything but the four ground electrode VAG plugs, where I normally buy OEM.

I see that NGK appears to have different series of plugs in Europe and the US. I have used (euro) BPR5FS, BPR6FS and BP7FS in my 351C, but these are very expensive here, and I've tried to locate them in the US, but it seems NGK recommends UR-4 there, which I have never seen here.

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m6onz5a 17 years ago

Yeah, you can put any plug in any vehicle, but they run better with the proper plug.. A customer of ours puts Champion in anything & everything.

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cuhulin 17 years ago

Back in the 1980s I owned a Vespa moped I bought second hand.I couldn't find any spark plug that would work for more than a week or so.One day I was at an auto junk yard and I saw an old junk Russian car sitting there.I asked the guy if I could buy the spark plugs from the car.He gave me the spark plugs for free.Those old spark plugs worked just fine for my moped. cuhulin

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Steve 17 years ago

I should have been more specific- yes, I meant Bosch Platinum plugs

The Mopar world has had rotten luck with Bosch O2 sensors, leading to repeated documentation that not all Bosch-branded aftermarket O2 sensors are of the same design, even with the same part number. But other than that, I've had decent luck with Bosch parts. And one Bosch coffee maker that still works after 17 years of daily use.

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Brent P 17 years ago

I thought that had happened on the Bosch plugs I used in my mustang. I was able to dig up some illustrations online (after 80K miles I didn't remember what they looked like to start with) and found they start that way new out of the box. Slightly recessed in the ceramic. Other than some light normal deposits the plugs I removed looked like the new ones in the pictures. I took the extra effort to go to where I could get motorcraft plugs and used those. I only had bosch in there because I decided to go with what was easy to get before.

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