The Ford Sollers plant in Vsevolozhsk, near St Petersburg, Russia, has built its 500,000th vehicle, also its first new Focus wagon, and plans a 20% ouput boost this year.
That would take production to 119,000 vehicles in 2012, Ford Sollers president and CEO Ted Cannis said, according to the Prime news agency.
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Marketing chief Mark Simpson said Ford’s car sales in Russia could total 140,000, including imported vehicles.
“It’s great that the half-millionth Ford car to be built in Russia is the first new Focus wagon, the latest model in our vehicle range,” Cannis said in a statement.
“Since the first car came off the production line here in Vsevolozhsk in 2002, the Ford brand has undergone enormous change in Russia. Our sales volume has increased five-fold since 2002, and we are determined to build upon that success in the years ahead.”
The plant in Vsevolozhsk was the first complete-manufacturing, non-domestic automotive plant in Russia when opened by Ford in 2002. It is now one of three plants operated by Ford Sollers. Local automaker and distributor Sollers and Ford signed an agreement on the joint venture in June 2011. Total capacity is 350,000 vehicles per year.
Over 2,700 employees currently work at the plant which produces around 300 cars on each of two shifts daily. The plant now produces the Focus in all three body styles: five-door hatchback, four-door sedan and five-door wagon. In 2009, Vsevolozhsk added the four-door Mondeo sedan.
