As Falcon sales continue to drop to historic lows, motoring scribes in Australia have dubbed this “the Ford death march”, reports former CAR editor, Cedric Wright, from Australia. Fewer than a thousand Falcons were delivered in July, as what was Ford’s hero car is now being outsold locally by the imported Ranger Ute, Focus and Fiesta. Even the introduction two months ago of the turboharged four-cylinder model have failed to halt the slide, as production drops to something under 70 units a day.
The Victoria and federal governments bought an extra two years of life for the Falcon with an aid package of $103 million ( about R920 million) at the start of this year, but Ford will be shedding at least 400 jobs by the end of the year, and it is openly speculated that. by 2016, “Ford will almost certainly bury the Falcon”. It is even suggested that Ford Australia itself might not survive much beyond that date, and that this would impact on the two remaining manufacturers—Toyota and Holden—by doing “critical damage” to the network of local component manufacturers.
One leading financial writer made this solemn comment at mid-July: “We are now facing the end-game for the manufacture of cars in Australia…”
His gloomy forecast gained momentum a few weeks later when a senior official from the Thai government made a formal visit to Melbourne and Adelaide to encourage Australian car manufacturers to set up business in Thailand.
