Last Day of Australian Ford Production Today

[updraught]

No more. Gone.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-0...-years/7909836

[SeaSlugs]

shame really but what can ya do? BTW were on track to get your Holden ute under our Pontiac badge but then gm killed off Pontiac.... Mitsubishi closed the last US factory in Bloomington, IL last year. Made a dent in the local economy with 1280 jobs out the door.

[mshmodela]

Clearly a supply and demand call --less demand for Ford's down under...Ford did move large Truck production FROM Mexico to my neck of the woods.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn...hio/index.html

[updraught]

The local industry has been propped up here by the govt for a number of years. Only a matter of time ...

In recent years European manufacturers seem to have made headway here. Jeeps seem to be selling OK after the free trade agreement.

Interesting about Mitsubishi in the US. They are popular here and throughout Asia as a reasonably priced, reasonable quality car/truck. I have a 4wd that has taken everything we have thrown at it, and bought for a bargain price.
In the US they seemed to suffer from proper marketing I think, and didn't do too well.

[C26Pinelake]

Start a movement to have the entire population boycott Fords or Ford products. If they don't care about you, show Ford you no longer care about them. Wayne

[SeaSlugs]

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Didnt help that alot of their cheaper cars that sold more were absolute junk in the 2000's in the US. Sure could buy a brand new Gallant for $16K usd but might only last a few years. Think of the last time you saw a Gallant or Eclipse on the road. Between Mitsubishi being ho hum on reliability (seem to always overheat) and KIA and Hyundai upping their bang for your buck, reliability, and warranties they were falling by the wayside.

Mitsubishi pulled out as they claimed they wanted to focus more on their Asian markets - that and Illinois is broke and wasn't going to renew their tax breaks so they left...

[Jeff/Illinois]

As SeaSlugs said. The quality on those cars was really bad. The few people I know that bought one, were regretting it a year later and wanted the cars gone. Dealers were hep to it too,,,,, wouldn't give you squat for trade they couldn't sell them used. One salesman I knew at a local Chevy dealership told me that he was told by his boss to politely tell Mitsubishi owners to go away they wouldn't even talk about trade. Don't know if that was a wise move probably not.

Yes as in most cases, Illinois gave Mitsubishi a lot of incentives to build here and when the free money was used up, and there was no more, they bailed. Pretty common. Sad that it works that way these days. Maytag did the same thing over in Galesburg. After taking millions of dollars from the taxpayers.

[SeaSlugs]

Galesburg has BNSF left and thats about it.

Yea IL gave the joint venture of Chrysler and Mitsubishi Diamonstar Motors 270 million in 1988 to come to IL(558 million in 2016 money), years ago they threatened to leave IL so the state gave them 30 million in tax incentives in 2011. No wonder the states so broke...Dont wanna know how much CAT gets paid to stay.

[Jeff/Illinois]

[QUOTE=SeaSlugs;1366171...Dont wanna know how much CAT gets paid to stay.[/QUOTE]


Good point they keep threatening to leave town, were going to close the Joliet plant recently and the Mossville facility even talked about moving corporate HQ to Phoenix.........low and behold in the 11th hour they proclaim they are staying then it starts all over again in the next year

[SeaSlugs]

Mossville is closed, moved to mexico I believe (engine plant) building still stands (completely vacant inside - machines sold) there are a handful of offices still out there and test cells for engines (+150* to -80*F, sand simulation, ice buildup, extreme humidity, extreme dryness, etc) but that is it - no production.

Closing building HH in East Peoria Jan 1st. (multi million square foot under the roof building - one of like 6 multi million square foot buildings in East Peoria for just production) The head guy of all of East Peoria is retiring in a year and hes one of the last good ol boys who worked his way up from the factory floor, hes fought alot to keep it in East Peoria/IL for the sake of jobs and local economy etc. Once hes gone you can guarantee some college grad will step in, take one look and the situation and it all goes to Texas. Area is gonna get really nasty if they do leave - just about every other business in the surrounding tri-county area supports CAT. Gonna be a mini Detroit.

[Mike V. Florida]

That sucks!

[Synchro909]

[QUOTE=updraught;1366054]The local industry has been propped up here by the govt for a number of years. Only a matter of time ...

I saw some figures a while ago that showed that the Australian Government tipped in about $2 per head of population for the car manufacturing industry over the last 5 years and that during the GFC, the American Govt shelled out about $178 per head while some European countries were up around $250-260.
As usual, don't believe anything a politician says.\
Pity the industry is gone. There is no guarantee that what we get now will be as good as what we have lost. Ford and GM are now just another foreign made car and will be lost in the dozens of others we have to choose from. Their overall share of the market will fall.

[SeaSlugs]

[QUOTE=Synchro909;1366420]

Originally Posted by updraught

The local industry has been propped up here by the govt for a number of years. Only a matter of time ...

I saw some figures a while ago that showed that the Australian Government tipped in about $2 per head of population for the car manufacturing industry over the last 5 years and that during the GFC, the American Govt shelled out about $178 per head while some European countries were up around $250-260.
As usual, don't believe anything a politician says.\
Pity the industry is gone. There is no guarantee that what we get now will be as good as what we have lost. Ford and GM are now just another foreign made car and will be lost in the dozens of others we have to choose from. Their overall share of the market will fall.

was gonna say, the US has bailed out all the US automakers a few times, pretty much all US airlines, Amtrack several times, its amazing we still function.

[ian Simpson]

Sorry to hear about all that. I remember the ship building on the Tyne and the Clyde, the British motor industry et al. It is called capitalism and is the bane of the working man.

Sorry if this is political and is removed, but that is why I am an avowed socialist.

[Synchro909]

Originally Posted by ian Simpson

Sorry to hear about all that. I remember the ship building on the Tyne and the Clyde, the British motor industry et al. It is called capitalism and is the bane of the working man.

Sorry if this is political and is removed, but that is why I am an avowed socialist.

Politics and money are inseparable. You never see anyone poor in office!
This is getting a bit close to being banned for so now, I'll butt out.

[updraught]

Originally Posted by SeaSlugs

Didnt help that alot of their cheaper cars that sold more were absolute junk in the 2000's in the US. Sure could buy a brand new Gallant for $16K usd but might only last a few years. Think of the last time you saw a Gallant or Eclipse on the road.

The plot thickens. I've only heard of the Eclipse in parts lists. We didn't get it here. The Gallant only, I think, in the 70's but looks like some bits of it went into the locally built Magna in later years. So we might have avoided the bad bits.

[dave in australia]

Years ago, there was only a hand full of car brands in Australia. Now there are over 60. All vying for a percentage of a very small market on a world scale. Also, what Aussies want to buy has changed. We used to want a nice sedan, with a torquey six cylinder engine. Now the tastes seem to be more 4WD - SUV. There are many other reasons that add up to production of cars not being profitable anymore in Australia.

[Jeff/Illinois]

Pondering what dave in Australia said...... all you seem to see anymore if you sit and watch traffic hoping to spot a neat car, is SUV's in all shapes and sizes. Most of them silver and white.

Used to be when I'd go out to So. Calif. not all too many years ago I would drool at the neat cars from the 50's-60's-70's plus a fair amount of older tin. Not today. Very boring.

I know times change and all, but outside of today's Mustang or Camaro or Challenger about every other car is very very boring to us car guys And very expensive

On a related note, a guy down the street from us just bought a mint condition 1965 Ford Falcon Sprint a couple weeks ago. You talk about a head turner, man what a neat car! Everybody and I mean EVERYbody stops and stares and waves at him even non-car folks in town! Of course we still get that in the Model A (to some extent still a lot of people waving) but that Falcon is a show stopper. And he drives it all over! And he paid about one-third of what my neighbor paid for her new and boring Toyota minivan that nobody gives a second look to.