Star – The US-based automaker Ford’s ‘Made in Türkiye’ Transit model commercial vehicles will play a major role in the company’s return to profitable growth in the European market.
Revealing the Ford Motor Company’s plans for the for the Europe’s struggling auto markets at the launch event of the new Mustang, Ford’s Executive Chairman Bill Ford said that the worst was over for the European car market and that the return to profitability was expected within the next few years.
“With their increasing sales figures, the Transit model commercial vehicles are expected to play a major role in Ford’s return to profitability in Europe”, Ford said at the Go Further event in Barcelona, Spain. The company plans to unveil 25 new vehicles over the 5 years.
Another Ford executive, Stephen Odell, Vice President of Ford, Europe, Middle East and Africa, pointed to the success of the Transit brand commercial vehicles. “New Transits will come out of our Turkish plant next year. A new 2-tonne Transit and the Transit Courier, the smallest model of the Transit family, will reach markets worldwide in 2014”, Odell noted.
The Turkish unit of the automaker, Ford-Otosan, established as a JV with Türkiye’s Koc Group, manufactures light commercial vehicles and trucks in Türkiye and exports to 90 countries worldwide including the US.
In addition to its two active plants in Golcuk, Kocaeli and Inonu, Eskisehir, the company is building a new plant in Yenikoy, Kocaeli which will take its annual production capacity to 400,000 vehicles once it becomes operational by 2014. Ford also maintains an engineering center in the same province, specializing in commercial vehicles.