The end of the Australian Ford

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Originally Posted by garrycol

Look to Aust motoring history - when we had tarriffs we made crap cars. Without tarriffs we made world quality vehicles - albiet more lately not the type the public wanted.

Garry

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Part of the problem is that there isn't the market locally to make the products that people actually want to buy. There are so many different niches now, that it would be impossible to cater for all of them in the manufacturing cabability in the country.

The market and people's tastes have changed enormously in the last 15-20 years, and with a comparatively small manufacturing facility, the local manufacturers have to back a horse, so to speak. A car plant is not something that can be chopped and changed at a moment's notice.

My particular example is probably quite typical, a small(ish) economical car for commuting and a larger 4x4 for the weekend getaways with room to chuck a large dog in the boot.

When I was buying, neither Ford nor Holden sold what I was looking for.

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Originally Posted by Chucaro

.......but, Germans subsidize their car industry to the tune of about $US95 per capita and the $US260 the Americans pay per head. Australia only $AUD18 per capita.
We work smarter for sure, how much money in grants per capita we give to Ralph Sarich and at the end Sarich ultimately transformed Oribtal into a billion-dollar company on the New York Stock Exchange. Orbital products are now utilised by one of China’s major auto firms.
Soon we are going to import Chinese cars with orbital engines developed with you and the rest of the Australians money.
If, and do not dream about it, help with grants the development of smart cars or any other revolutionary product you can bet that our creativity will end overseas for the benefit of another country or multinational corporation.
I said it again, until we do not have politicians with balls we are going to be robed of our intellectual and material assets.
Perhaps what Inc try to say is that tariffs should be applied to products from countries that do not "play a fair trade game" and I, a person agains globalization in the current from tend to agree with him.

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Sarich was smart. Orbital was licensing the IP to companies to use in their own designs not building engines. The Chinese bough the rights to use Sarich/Orbital's knowledge about the orbital engine concept, not a tangible product.

We live in a global economy that is driven by exchange of ideas and knowledge. If you are just focusing on the tangible products that result from those ideas and knowledge you've already lost the game.

Rather than start a new thread, I thought I'd resurrect this old one.
It's been interesting, for me at least, to read back through people's various thoughts and comments on the subject, but three years on from when this thread was started, tomorrow sees the day when local Ford production stops.

Effort has been made to redistribute jobs to other sites/functions and lots of careers days have been held for Ford workers and the suppliers, but it's still a sad day for many of the workers who will face an uncertain future after tomorrow and my thoughts are with them.

It'll be a somber day at work tomorrow :(

When I first heard the news all those years ago I was sad that we where going to loose the manufacturing of fords (acutally all vehicles in Oz) even thou I wasnt really a ford fan. Well since then I've become a Ford Falcon owner (but not for much longer - if it was a manual V8 then I'd consider keeping it). So Im still sad to see Ford go and its a shame more people didnt keep on using the big aussie built cars - as far as Im concerned they really do eat up the long distance cruising and are not as bad on the go juice as everyone makes out. I drove my Falcon to Perth (1400km drive from home for my) and it was super comfy too for the whole drive

I became a Ford owner too....but is it really a Ford?

the engine/transmission is ford....like a defender

the rest of it is really just a typical Thailand built motor vehicle.

and really.....it's good.....Holden or Ford in Australia could never build a vehicle as cost free and reliable as this one has been.

....and I guess that's the end.

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Originally Posted by DieselDan

Rather than start a new thread, I thought I'd resurrect this old one.
It's been interesting, for me at least, to read back through people's various thoughts and comments on the subject, but three years on from when this thread was started, tomorrow sees the day when local Ford production stops.

Effort has been made to redistribute jobs to other sites/functions and lots of careers days have been held for Ford workers and the suppliers, but it's still a sad day for many of the workers who will face an uncertain future after tomorrow and my thoughts are with them.

It'll be a somber day at work tomorrow :(

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Yes indeed, "Sad Day" & "Uncertain Future" for the workers.
Whilst I was never made redundant myself, at one stage of my career, some of my colleagues were, and the thought of it, was not pleasant.
So yes, I shall be thinking of the workers today.
Pickles.

Yes its sad and unnecessary.

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Sad and unnecessary and extremely damaging to our country as a whole. Car industries are such a massively important part of the culture and economy of any developed prosperous country. It goes way beyond just bolting some bits together. There is innovation and training and employment and economic benefit and knowledge and, and, and... It's almost endless.

I work in Engineering at Ford and have done so for some time. I've also worked at Holden and others locally. I spent part of my career knee deep in production at Broadmeadows and know the plant well. I'm working from home today. I just can't bring myself to be on site when they shutter the place. My job is secure. Our Engineering is busier than ever and we are all flat out defining, developing, shaping, engineering multiple products for the blue oval globally. We are regarded as the best in the world for this and our track record stands. However I fear this will be eroded over time now as some of the passion wanes and new engineers come in without that grounding. Not manufacturing is a massive blow and something that will have huge longer term consequences.

ARB specifically manufacture locally for many good reasons and insist that their Engineering dept is immersed in and interacts heavily with the production area to ensure that clever, efficient, robust, well-rounded products continue to be made. Almost impossible to do this in a bubble. And the true cost goes way deeper than a simple piece price for an item.

My thoughts go out to those leaving the plant for the last time today. And my thanks for what they've done. This is a very sad day for what this country has done to itself and they way we've allowed and encouraged the rest of the world to flood our market unhindered whilst heavily restricting and protecting their own. Thailand must be laughing their heads off at our stupidity. Level playing field? Free trade? Fantasy.

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The return on investment for every dollar the government has invested in supporting the local industry (whilst cutting it off at the knees and removing all protections, etc that still apply in other countries) is in the order of 30:1. That's $30 back for every $1 spent. Not a typo. Most businesses are happy approaching a healthy 10% return on investment, how does 3000% stack up to that...

Want to compare that to the billions sunk into the financial sector, or mining...? What sort of return do we get on that?

I absolutely loathe hearing about how all this taxpayer money has been 'wasted' on this industry. If getting a thirty-fold return is 'wasting' then I am obviously out-of-step with the world.

Yeah, I am a bit tired and emotional about it.

Nice summary of Ford history here:

Ford Australia ceases production: Timeline of the company's decades-long history in the country - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Interesting to note that Australia only got a vehicle manufacturing industry because in 1917 Prime Minister Billy Hughes banned imports of luxury goods, meaning car bodies had to be made here.
Thailand only has a car industry because it slapped import tariffs of more than 400% from memory on cars brought into the country.
There's no doubt we could make high quality popular cars at competitive prices here, and export them, but we just don't seem to have the guts to commit to making it happen any more.
If this thread was in Current Affairs where political comment is allowed I could say more about that.
A very sad day.