Ford Australia will import the redesigned 2019 Focus small car, but not from China, as will be the case in North America, a local media report said.
According to GoAutoNews, Australian market cars stocks will most likely come from Ford Europe’s Saarlouis factory in Germany and not the Changan Ford joint-venture plant in Chonqing, western China, which will supply North America.
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The report noted production of mainstream Focus variants sold in Australia was switched from Europe to Thailand to cut costs in 2012 but local rumour suggests Focus will follow Fiesta out of production at Ford’s Thai manufacturing base at Rayong over the next two years.
Thailand supplies the Ranger pickup truck that is a top selling Ford model in Australia and New Zealand which tends to source its Fords from the same factories as its trans-Tasman neighbour. Ford Australia sourced some first generation Focus models from South Africa before Thai production began.
GoAutoNews noted Ford had already confirmed plans to end Focus production at its Michigan plant from late next year before retooling the production lines there to produce the next-generation, Australian-developed Ranger pick-up from 2019 and related Bronco SUV from 2020. This would leave just two factories producing Focus for world consumption, in China and Germany.
The report added Ford has already officially announced it would source most of its North American Focus range from China from 2019 with some variants – most likely the high-performance ST and RS – coming from Germany.
The report said speculation Ford Australia might consider a Chinese built Focus was raised when a current model, LHD test car with Chinese Changan badges was spotted by GoAutoNews near Ford Asia-Pacific Product Development Centre’ s design and engineering base at Broadmeadows, in Melbourne.
But its has since concluded the test car was involved in one of many engineering projects being done by the Australian unit for Ford units in Asia. Ford Australia, which assembled the Focus’ predecessors, the Laser, Escort and Anglia, from KD kits for decades until the 1990s, alongside its locally manufactured Falcon line, has now ended local build but continues to operate a large research and development unit.
There is also speculation Ford Australia will axe the Fiesta in all but the top-end ST guise within the next year or so, GoAutoNews said. The automaker has yet to confirm that but the new generation Fiesta is already on sale in Europe yet there is no so sign of the replacement going into Thai production.
GoAutoNew said it understood the current Fiesta would simply be kept on sale in Australia until build ends in Thailand.
A Ford Australia spokesman declined to comment to GoAutoNews on future sourcing plans for next generation models.
See also: ANALYSIS – Ford’s future global cars and minivans
