Ford factory in Australia won’t close early, as shutdown date confirmed

THE last Ford ever to be made in Australia will roll off the line in October 2016, as workers were told production is confirmed for next year.

Workers at Ford's Broadmeadows factory in Victoria, leave at the end of their working day after the company advised that as many as 240 jobs will be lost from both the Broadmeadows and the Geelong plants, due to declining demands for large cars.

FORD has confirmed its Broadmeadows car factory and Geelong engine plant will go the distance, and shut down as planned on 7 October 2016.

The announcement gives certainty to the 850 workers at both sites and puts an end to speculation of an early closure.

The company today informed the workers and the unions that it is planning a full year of production given the higher than expected demand for the locally made Falcon sedan and Territory SUV.

Ford is Australia’s oldest car maker. It began making vehicles here in 1925 and started assembly of the Falcon at Broadmeadows on the northern outskirts of Melbourne in 1960.

The company says the last ever Australian-made Ford will roll off the production line on October 7 but the exact model and what will happen to it are yet to be determined.

When asked if the last Ford would be the flagship XR8 Falcon sports sedan and if it would be donated to a museum, Ford spokesman Wes Sherwood said: “No decision has been made.”

Ford will become solely an importer of vehicles once the factories close.

Ford says while most of the 500 workers at Broadmeadows and 350 workers at Geelong will have their last day on October 7, there will be “a few dozen” staying on to handle the logistics of getting cars to dealerships.

Still popular ... sales of the Ford Territory are down, but it’s better than what Ford was expecting.

The factory is due to be handed over to a “decommissioning” team by the end of October.

Ford has been the subject of rumours of an early factory closure ever since it announced the shutdown two years ago.

But Ford executives have maintained all along that they would go the distance; Ford insiders have told News Corp Australia it had budgeted for the extra cost to keep the factory running.

Ford and Australia’s other two car makers Holden and Toyota have made substantial losses keeping their factories alive until their shutdown dates.

Ford ended last year in the red after posting a $191 million loss as its sales fell to a historic 48-year low.

It brought Ford Australia’s total losses to a staggering $1.3 billion over the past 10 years, during which time it has received more than $1.1 billion in government funding.

Looking back ... an earlier Ford factory in 1940, before Broadmeadows was built.

Ford has only posted a profit in three of the past 10 years; the 2014 loss alone evaporated the profit the car maker has reported over an entire decade: $186 million.

Meanwhile Holden announced its second biggest financial loss ever -- $255.2 million — as its sales hit a 21-year low in 2014.

Holden has been in the red for eight of the past 10 years, posting only modest profits in 2010 ($112.4 million) and 2011 ($89.7 million).

The result wasn’t as bad as Holden’s previous year’s loss of $553.8 million, and was driven largely by redundancies and other costs linked to the 2017 closure of its car assembly line in Elizabeth in South Australia and the 2016 closure of its engine factory in Port Melbourne.

Toyota is expected to close the Altona factory that makes the Camry and Aurion sedans in late 2017, just after Holden.

This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowling