Ford’s Atlanta plant produced its last Taurus on Friday, 27 October, and the plant is now being idled, with the loss of 1,950 jobs.
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Atlanta was opened in 1947 and has produced seven million cars. For the past five years, Atlanta Assembly has ranked among the top 10 most productive assembly plants in North America, as reported by Harbour Consulting. In the 2005 report, it ranked number one in productivity.
The move is part of Ford’s effort to reduce assembly capacity in North America to 3.6m units by the end of 2008, a reduction of 25% compared to 2005.
Atlanta is closely associated with the success and subsequent demise of the Taurus and its Mercury Sable stablemate. They were the first models to be developed in Detroit collaboratively – with designers, engineers and production experts all talking to one another – something that is taken for granted today.
Ironically Ford’s new CEO Alan Mulally, has been reported to have been inspired by the way the Taurus was developed and used it as a case study for his team when they were overhauling development at Boeing.
Launched in 1985, sales of the Taurus once exceeded 400,000 units a year. But while Toyota’s rival Camry and Honda’s Accord built up share in the car market, Ford was focusing on the higher margin SUV market. Unable to achieve enough volume, Ford no longer has an entry in this passenger car segment and is instead relying on the new Ford Edge crossover to plug the gap in volumes.
Restaurant owner eyes last Taurus for museum
