Foden Trucks date back to 1856.

Edwin Foden began his career as an apprentice to an agricultural equipment company of Plant & Hancock. He left them for an apprenticeship at Crewe Railway works, but later returned at the age of 19. Shortly after, he became a partner in the company. The company produced massive industrial engines, as well as small stationary engines and from 1880 agricultural traction engines.

On the retirement of George Hancock in 1887, the company was renamed Edwin Foden Sons & Co Ltd.

The company first produced experimental steam lorries shortly after the turn of the 20th century, and this work led to the design of the vehicle that was entered into the 1901 war office trials. The model was the basis for a highly successful line of vehicles that were produced over the next 30 years.

By the late 1920s, Edwin Richard, saw the future lay in diesel power. He resigned from the board of directors, and subsequently retired. However, his son Dennis, could not afford to resign, but was not prepared to let things carry on as they were and with financial input from his family, a new company was set up to design and produce diesel lorries and was known as ERF.

After World War 2, Foden re-introduced some old models with few improvements, and they also entered the bus chassis market in 1946. By 1950 they had developed a rear engine model which predated the Leyland model by 7 years.

In 1958, they introduced the lightweight glass reinforced plastic into cab production and this led to the manufacture of the first British built, mass produced tilt cab in 1962.

1964 saw Foden design a new model which was to compete in the 32 ton market.

December 1974 saw the company hit the rocks, and received Government money to bail them out.

The home market continued to be depressed and it was not until 1977/78 that saw Foden return to a reasonable profit. Large Ministry of Defence contracts to supply military vehicles helped the company in it's recovery.

1980 saw Foden become acquired by the American company PACCAR, and are now a division of that company. After PACCAR acquired DAF trucks in 1996 and then Leyland Trucks in 1998, Foden production ceased to make way for DAF trucks which were to be rebadged as Foden.

In 2005, PACCAR announced that Foden production was likely to cease in 2006, as it would release manufacturing capacity at Leyland Trucks to allow for the increased volume of DAF Trucks.

The last Foden was produced in July 2006.