The Ford Motor Company has come a long way since it’s founding family decided to send the company into the hands of the public. Ownership by shareholders quickly seen the company reach out into all markets they possibly could, and quickly became established in Europe and Australia.
The European division of Ford has always focused on small to medium sized cars, with large cars primarily the domain of Ford USA. Although large Ford sedans and wagons were built in Australia, they didn’t see any exports besides to their neighbour New Zealand, a trend that carried on up to their last days before they shut down the Australian arm completely in 2017.
Today the company seems to be in some trouble with relevance, their European arm is doing most of the sales, while in America the large trucks and Mustang are still being produced. The mustang has always been a hit globally, and with the closure of Ford Australia, they are now being exported there, where sales are doing considerably well.
European sales however are what is keeping the company afloat, and cars such as the Ford Fiesta and Ford Focus are still selling well both in Europe and their many export markets. The Ford Mondeo is doing average in sales, as more people move towards smaller cars being now a global trend, even in the USA, it seems like Ford USA made a good choice to stick with just the Mustang and Trucks for their local market.
Some European models are made currently in South America and Mexico, to save on shipping costs from Europe to the USA. Recently Ford has closed a number of facilities where small cars could have been produced in the USA, however it makes more financial sense to stick to the cars Americans demand for production in the local market, the South American production keeps costs low for the average American small car buyer, and shareholders still make a good profit on-top of these sales, along with those employed by dealerships which number usually around 20 employees per shop.
Recently trade tariffs have been hot on the lips of most journalists and even Ford USA themselves, however nothing has developed further on this in recent times. If Ford did move their production of small cars to the USA however, it’s likely it will drive the cost of the average small car up considerably higher than most Americans would like to pay.
This could have flow on effects of actually lowering the amount of Americans employed by the company if dealerships loose their main draw-card small cars due to excessive prices due to local production.
Ford owners can find a range of free download pdf Ford workshop manuals at AllCarManuals.com.