Ford Finally Pulls The Plug On Australian Manufacturing
A sad day for both Ford and Australia. The Blue Oval has officially announced an end to building cars in Australia, which Ford has done since the 1920s.
Both the Broadmeadows assembly plant and the Geelong engine plant will close in 2016, resulting in a loss of 1200 jobs. Declining sales of the Ford Falcon, and the expense of retooling Geelong to build engines that are complaint with Euro 5 emissions standards. Ford’s One Ford strategy, which seeks to eliminate regional specific models like the Falcon, also hastened the demise of Ford’s Australian manufacturing operations.
A rising Australian dollar has also been identified as a culprit, but Holden and Toyota are expected to continue their manufacturing operations in Australia despite this. Holden has even committed to a new generation of Commodore beyond the yet to be introduced VF – though it may not follow the traditional rear-drive Aussie sedan template, as smaller, more fuel-efficient cars have become popular in Australia.
Either way, Ford’s Australian operations have been on shaky ground for some time. Today is only a confirmation of what many thought was inevitable.
More by Derek Kreindler
Comments
Join the conversation
"...because the car in the picture at the top of my page is the blandest of beigey McBlandmobiles..." Why the Falcon would flop if 'brought here'. Ford isn't an entertainment company for those who want to "see it here" but not actaully buy. Gear heads want old looking performance cars or [actual restored ones], and upper income car nuts want Euro, Euro, Euro names. Imagine the complaints about the prices. "I ain't paying no $40 K for a Ford that look like a Toyota!" Also, here, Falcon means economy compact, not 'muscle car'. And again, gear heads would say 'too many doors!'
Okay, okay, In defense of the Falcon, and to rebuff a lot of the ignorant comments about this car. That photo is seriously rubbish, and was lazily ripped from Wikipedia. Do a search on the XR series falcons, and you can see that with the right spec, they are an attractive vehicle. In terms of saying it is really old car, if you claim it to be a development of the EA Falcon, which some people do because of the under bonnet packaging, yep it is old. Not one piece of it is transferable to an EA, but yes the EA was introduced in 1988, and signed off in 1985. Still a youngster compared to the Panther. In terms of the person who drove a Panther and a Falcon and thought the driving experience similar, I’m amazed. The Falcon is light years ahead of a Panther to drive. It should be. It is a monocoque construction, has a sophisticated Independent Rear Suspension, has a ZF 6 speed auto, and a choice of 4cylinder turbo, inline 6 cylinder, 6 cylinder turbo, V8, and V8 supercharged engines. Driving experience, handling etc, is comparable to Commodore/G8, but different. The ecoboost 4, is the best balanced of the lot, and is a really sweet thing to drive. The Mustang would have been lucky to have the Falcon under-pinnings as a base. If anything, it was too refined and sophisticated to be a Mustang. Some rubbish about how a Mustang has to have a live rear axle to be a Mustang. In terms of safety, it was the first locally produced 5 star ANCAP (roughly equivalent euro NCAP) car, and incredibly did it with the base model, which at that time didn’t have curtain airbags as standard, and got the bonus 2 points for the pole test. At that time the base VE Commodore was 4 star rated. In terms of a business case, if it had been LHD, it would have additionally had application in the Middle East and South America, just like Commodore/G8. RIP Falcon ….
My comment was directed at ignorant people such as yourself. To compare the IRS in Falcon to the rudimentary IRS of the Mk4 Zephyr is pointless. People were making Panther vs Falcon comparisons, so I was comparing the relative sophistication between the 2. People were saying Falcon platform would not be sophisticated enough for Mustang. Wrong. In terms of falcon engines being the same as Malaise era fords, shows how little you know about the inline 6 development in Australia. 250 2V, crossflow, alloy head, EFI, didn't see any of these feature on the US 200. When you talk about the XF Falcon being a knock-off of the MK III Granada, I think you are out by about 5 years out either way. You of course meant XD Falcon vs Mk II Granada, or possibly EA Falcon versus MK III. Buy hey you know it all. Anything else you want to be proved wrong on ?
@CJinSD Pal, I have forgotten more about cars than you know. I'm also not stuck in a time warp reference MKII Granadas, which were in fact warmed over Mk 4 Zephyrs, and talking about them merits of semi trailing arm independent rear suspensions, which are even more irrelevant and dated than the Falcon engine. I'll clue you in, it is 2013, and not 1983. You do know there have been 3 generations of Falcon, since the XD/XF series you seem to use as your frame of reference. I'm sad the Falcon is going, I'm sadder that twits like you troll the internet proclaiming all your dated knowledge and prejudice. Have you even driven a current Falcon ?