Ford Australia cease local manufacture - UPDATE

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Ford Australia cease local manufacture - UPDATE

It's official - the Falcon is dead. Or at least it will be in three years. On the back of the report from earlier this morning, Ford Australia CEO Bob Graziano announced in a press conference that local vehicle assembly was "no longer viable" and that For
May 23, 2013 9:22 AM AWST
It's official - the Falcon is dead. Or at least it will be in three years. On the back of the report from earlier this morning, Ford Australia CEO Bob Graziano announced in a press conference that local vehicle assembly was "no longer viable" and that Ford Australia would switch to being an import-only company, meaning the demise of both the Falcon and the Territory.

Ford Australia cease local manufacture - UPDATE

"All of us at Ford remain committed to our long history of serving Australian customers with the very best vehicles that deliver cutting edge technology at an affordable cost," said Bob Graziano, president and CEO of Ford Australia at the announcement. "Unfortunately, due to challenging market conditions we are unable to do that longer-term while continuing to manufacture locally."

Graziano's announcement comes on the back of Ford Australia revealing they lost AU$141 million last financial year, AU$290 million in 2011 and over AU$600 million over the past five years. The closures at Geelong and Broadmeadows will result in the loss of an expected 1,200 jobs.

The good news, what little there is, is that Ford Australia's world-renowned engineering, testing and product development teams are expected to remain in place, accounting for approximately 1,000 jobs.

The end of local manufacture will see the end of the Falcon, the longest running vehicle nameplate in Australia. The debut of the Falcon in 1960 also marked the opening of Ford's Broadmeadows assembly plant, where the Falcon has been consistently produced since, including periods in the late 1970s and early 1980s when it was one of Australia's most popular vehicles, outselling archrival Holden in the 'big car' stakes.

Planned updates for both the Falcon and Territory (which will also die with the closure of Broadmeadows), scheduled for 2014, now seem less likely to go ahead. Despite the dropping of both these models, Ford have announced they will increase the locally-available new product lineup by 30 percent by 2016.

The demise of the Falcon will also have an impact on the two teams - Ford Performance Racing and Dick Johnson Racing - who currently run Falcons in the V8 Supercar championship. Under V8 Supercar rules, teams must run a commercially available four door sedan that is subject to minimum production totals. With no other country producing the Falcon, those teams will have to switch to another suitable Ford product, possibly the Mondeo, or switch manufacturers.

The redundancies at both Ford Australia facilities will be phased in over the coming years, ahead of a full closure of both plants in October, 2016.

 

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