In December 2003, Horton Holding Inc assumed full ownership of Horton Sachs GmbH & Co KG and will officially change the name of the German organization to Horton Europe GmbH & Co KG. These changes are part of a 2001 joint venture agreement, in which Horton acquired the ZF Sachs fan clutch business. In addition, the Horton subsidiary built and moved to a new building in the Maintal Industrial Park of Schweinfurt, Germany.
Horton held an open house at the site Oct 18, 2003, with the theme of “Ein Neuer Anfang” (A New Beginning).
The new Schweinfurt manufacturing facility is VDA 6.1- and ISO 14001-certified and complements Horton's current plant in Britton SD, which is QS9000-certified.
The German location is also equipped with a technical center equivalent to the facility at corporate headquarters in Minnesota. Each technical center includes fully instrumented test cells with around-the-clock video monitoring and a central control center to observe and record performance data.