{"id":2699,"date":"2013-05-27T08:53:53","date_gmt":"2013-05-26T22:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/?p=2699"},"modified":"2020-06-20T01:37:38","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T15:37:38","slug":"a-ford-drivers-personal-reaction-to-ford-australias-bad-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/home\/a-ford-drivers-personal-reaction-to-ford-australias-bad-news\/","title":{"rendered":"A Ford Driver\u2019s Personal Reaction To Ford Australia\u2019s Bad News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sad<\/a><\/p>\n

The bomb hit us all on Friday.\u00a0 Ford\u00a0<\/a>Australia is going to stop production altogether in 2016 and is shutting down the engine plant in Geelong and the assembly plant in Broadmeadows.\u00a0 I\u2019m well aware that there are probably sound financial reasons for this move and is probably something to do with the whole global village thing, but I\u2019m still gutted. I guess many other folk are, too, especially if they (a) were working for Ford Australia and are now out of a job and (b) were proud to drive an Aussie-made Ford.<\/p>\n

The axe fell on Mitsubishi\u00a0<\/a>in Aussie five years ago. Now Ford is shutting down. How much longer are Holden <\/a>and Toyota<\/a> , which still have a manufacturing presence in Australia, going to be able to keep the home fires burning?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to get into the whole political blame game thing.\u00a0 I\u2019m not a political expert or an economist. I\u2019m just a driver.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been a Ford supporter for years.\u00a0 I got my driver\u2019s licence in an Aussie-made Ford Falcon <\/a>\u00a0and I currently drive an Aussie-made Ford Fairlane <\/a>\u00a0(and, among other cars, I had an Aussie-made Ford Festiva in between those two).\u00a0 I liked the idea that I was supporting the team Down Under by choosing to drive a Ford. \u00a0I liked the mental picture of the iron coming out of the Aussie mines ultimately ending up in an Aussie car factory and ending up being driven on Aussie roads \u2013 kind of like the vehicle equivalent of a farmers\u2019 market and buying locally grown food.\u00a0 And I also liked the thought that it getting spare parts was a heck of a lot easier with a Ford. In fact, it was a lot easier and quicker to get the spare parts \u2013 it took my local mechanic next to no time to get a spare bit on the few times that something needed fixing on the Fords I\u2019ve owned; when I had a Saab <\/a>9000, it took three weeks for a replacement part to arrive from Sweden, leaving me walking the kids to preschool in the middle of winter (said Saab was a great car when it was on the road, I have to add).<\/p>\n

I suppose I\u2019m not the only person with questions about what is going to happen now.\u00a0 First of all, what\u2019s going to happen to all the workers and the community in the Geelong area now that an industry that\u2019s been there for the best part of a century is closing down?\u00a0 And where are all the Fords in the world going to be made now?\u00a0 Are they going to be produced in some country where the workers get paid a pittance and work excruciatingly long hours in shonky conditions?\u00a0 What\u2019s the knock-on economic effect going to be on the Australian economy as a whole if we\u2019re not making as many cars locally and a larger chunk of ore is heading overseas in an unprocessed state instead of getting the value-added treatment here?\u00a0 Did they actually export many of the Fords made here in the first place (well, they sent a few across the ditch to New Zealand, but anywhere else?)?<\/p>\n

However, a Reuters article reports that Ford USA is increasing production and is shortening its usual two-week summer shut-down from two weeks to one week to meet demand, as well as creating more jobs. Guess where the spare parts for your Ford might be coming from (I\u2019m just guessing, too \u2013 some might be made by local folk (fingers crossed)).<\/p>\n

And I have a question for myself: will my past loyalty to the blue oval override my support for local industry, or will I have a long, hard think about whether my next set of wheels should be a Holden? http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/zaymyi-v-ukraine.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The bomb hit us all on Friday.\u00a0 Ford\u00a0Australia is going to stop production altogether in 2016 and is shutting down the engine plant in Geelong and the assembly plant in Broadmeadows.\u00a0 I\u2019m well aware that there are probably sound financial reasons for this move and is probably something to do with the whole global village […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2699"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12175,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2699\/revisions\/12175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}