Features
28 mar 19

You won’t see new Fords in Russia after summer

In these challenging times, Ford is restructuring its global operations. After having decided to close its car and truck factory in Sao Paolo, Brazil and its transmission plant in Blanquefort, France, plus announcing thousands of redundancies in Europe, the Blue Oval now says it will withdraw from the Russian car market.

Ford’s Russian joint-venture, Ford Sollers, will shut down its assembly plants in St-Petersburg and Naberezhnye Chelny plus the engine factory in Elabug and focus entirely on light commercial vehicles. Sollers will gain full control over the joint-venture, Ford said in a statement.

From the end of June, you won’t see any Focus or Mondeo models coming out of the St.-Petersburg plant anymore. At the same time, Naberezhnye Chelny will put the last Fiesta and Ecosport cars together. Ford's assembly plant in Elabug, which produces the top-selling van model in Russia, i.e. the Transit, will remain open.

Photo credit: Enuze.com

 

Authored by: Dieter Quartier