92RS shearn

In addition to this GM has indicated it will require more government incentives to continue its production facilities down under.


BBC News - Ford plans to shut all Australian production by 2016

US car giant Ford Motor will shut all its Australian manufacturing plants by October 2016, after more than 85 years of making vehicles in the country.

About 1,200 workers are expected to lose their jobs from the Broadmeadows and Geelong plants, in Victoria state.

Ford said its Australian operations had lost A$600m ($580m; £385m) over the last five years.

The strength of the Australian dollar has made manufacturing more expensive, while sales have been under pressure.

"Our costs are double that of Europe and nearly four times Ford in Asia," Bob Graziano, the chief executive of Ford Australia, said. "The business case simply did not stack up."

He added that "manufacturing is not viable for Ford in Australia in the long-term".

'Devastated'

Ford said that it would still import its cars into Australia.

Leigh Diehm from the Australian Manufacturers Workers Union (AMWU) told ABC News that its members in both sites were "devastated by the news".

"We will be sitting down with Ford this afternoon working our way through and talking to our members on the two sites over the coming months and years."

Mr Graziano said Ford had looked at all other possibilities before making this "difficult" announcement.

The Australian dollar has risen 29% against the Japanese yen over the past year, making Australian products much less competitive.

That has had a negative impact on the local car manufacturing industry as a whole.

Last year General Motor's local subsidiary, Holden, announced it would cut 500 jobs from Victoria and South Australia because of slowing demand and the high dollar.

The Australian government last year announced a $5.4bn fund to support the car industry, including $34m to Ford to continue production until at least the end of 2016.

Ford began manufacturing in Australia in 1925 with the Model T cars in Geelong.

King Moose SS

Well... They should just make the Falcon over here then. Problem solved.

AdioSS

Too bad they didn't

AnthonyHSV

They had no export market and the appetite for larger cars is shrinking in Australia with added costs of fuel. Combine that with the lowering of tariffs on imported cars it was just a matter of when not if.

bossco

That's what I was thinking, develop a global large car platform that could be made both left and right drive with a variety of drivetrains and drivetrain configurations in both manual and automatic and produce it in the US to take advantage of the weak dollar.

AnthonyHSV

Sucks to be a Ford guy in Australia now.

Will be replaced by a FWD ugly POS like the Taurus most likely.

bossco

Yeah I can't imagine, especially the **** talking that's going to go down on various forums making it tough on Falcon guys in particular but I wonder if there is gonna be collective "F YOU Ford" since IIRC about 1200 jobs are going to evaporate not to mention the possible supplier fallout that will occur.

It will be pretty interesting to see how all this will effect Ford sales in general.

AnthonyHSV

Agreed, the diehard Ford types who are at Bathurst every year waving the Ford flags, can't see them getting a Taurus. I expect Ford will push their Euro imported small cars like the Focus, Mondeo and Fiesta. So abandon their traditional market, and maybe import a SUV vehicle from the US to replace the Territory.

The components manufactures are going to suffer, their 3 main customers in Australia are Holden, Toyota and Ford. Those who can't diversify or rely too much on Ford will go.

FWIW I was in US in April and hired a Mustang V6, not bad at all, a enjoyable drive. Wish I got the 8, found you needed to rev it a bit to get power. If they were to make RHD versions and sold them at a reasonable price they'd sell well here.

King Moose SS

I've been saying that forever. Hopefully Ford will finally listen, they were against that idea for a while since it would of interfered with Panther Platform (Crown Vic) sales. Now that the Panther Platform is gone I don't see why they couldn't do it.

Rumor has it the next generation mustang will have a RHD version for the UK market. I can't imagine that it won't find it's way to Australia if the demand is there.

AnthonyHSV

Cool, long as they don't do some crazy mark-up, Ford may have a car that would sell here.

bossco

Ford has hinted at global sales themselves, although I've heard the next gen Mustang is going to something more palatable to international tastes (read aero blob) so I suspect the next car will be closer to the 94-2004 in appearance just a bit bigger.

guionM

When I was Australia in 2006, Ford's main office here in the US had just decided NOT to lock in left hand drive capability into the revised Falcon. In retrospect THAT doomed the car.

Back then, Ford was still aiming to use D2C as the basis for a unified RWD platform for both Australia and the US. That idea evaporated when Ford decided not to replace the Crown Vic and Town Car (which would have also been the basis of the cars that would replace Aussie's big Fords. That whole idea unraveled when Ford instead decided to use their Volvo based platforms and AWD (the Taurus and MKS).

The other shoe that dropped was in fact the strength of the Aussie dollar. Unlike the US, Australia has managed it's economy extremely well, and was perhaps the only place on earth that wasn't affected by the recession. But the down side to a strong dollar is that your goods locally manufactured goods are more expensive to other countries. Add to that the fact that large car sales are finally tumbling in Australia (they slipped here years ago) and you have the perfect storm.

*Ford of Australia had a car that was expensive to make.
*Australia's full size car market is slipping. Badly.
*Ford locked in Right Hand Drive, so it couldn't sell it outside of RHD countries (not exactly where global sales are) to keep volume high enough to make it worthwhile to produce.
*Ford decided to go with a FWD/AWD platform instead of RWD for their big cars

GM-Holden's saving grace is that they engineered their cars for a global market, and Commodores and Statesmans are sold under various names in China, Korea, Europe, South America, as well as the US.

guionM

Actually, that's exactly the plan.

guionM

Don't hold your breath. Ford is highly profitable right now, so they aren't desperate. Remember, they were losing money in Australia and Australia's car market isn't much bigger than New York State. Not having Australia will cut their losses and add to profits by simply importing vehicles from cheaper places...ie: the US.

Ford is creating another car which would best be described as a modern Lincoln LS sedan off of the new Mustang platform. The new Mustang and it's spinoffs including the RWD Lincoln are being set up for both LHD and RHD, so it will be sold in Europe and most likely Oz as well.

King Moose SS

Well, Well, Well. Ford is finally going to do something about the snooze-fest Lincoln Lineup. It's about time. Hopefully they will give the car a proper name and not put unmemorable 3 letters to try sell the "brand" instead of the car.