Ford Saarlouis Body & Assembly (SB&A) is a major car plant located on the western edge of Saarlouis in the German Saarland. It belongs to Ford-Werke GmbH, the German subsidiary of the American automaker Ford Motor Company.
Ford Saarlouis Body & Assembly (SB&A) is a major car plant located on the western edge of Saarlouis in the German Saarland. It belongs to Ford-Werke GmbH, the German subsidiary of the American automaker Ford Motor Company.
The construction of the plant started in 1966 on a former airfield. On 16 September 1966, the foundation stone was laid. In 1968, the production of car body panels for Renault started.
The plant commenced car production on 16 January 1970, and was formally opened in the presence of Henry Ford II six months later in June 1970. It was designed to co-produce with Ford’s Halewood plant the company’s recently introduced Escort model, itself intended to compete head-on with Opel’s successful Kadett in the various markets of continental Europe.
At the time the plant was opened, the UK, where the Escort had been produced since the end of 1967, was not part of the European Economic Community and it was not clear whether or when it would join.
In June 2019, Ford announced it would reduce the number of shifts at Saarlouis in an effort to cut costs, as part of a Europe-wide restructuring plan that includes closing several assembly plants in the continent. [1]
In June 2022, Ford announced it will produce its future electric models at Ford Valencia Body and Assembly, leaving the future of the Saarlouis plant past 2025 uncertain. [2]
| Model | Production Time |
|---|---|
| Ford Focus | 10 August 1998 – present |
| Model | Production Time |
|---|---|
| Ford Escort | 1970 - 1998 (6,517,352 produced at Saarlouis) |
| Ford Capri | 1971 - 1975 |
| Ford Fiesta | 1976 - 1980 |
| Ford Orion | 1983 - 1990 |
| Ford Focus | 1998 - present |
| Ford Kuga | 2008 - 2012 |
| Ford C-Max | 2015 - 2019 |
The plant produced its 5,000,000th vehicle in 1990 and the 10,000,000th on 1 July 2005.
Employee numbers reflecting both the changing fortunes of the small family cars produced there and the increasing automation of car production in Europe have evolved as follows:
| Year | Employees |
|---|---|
| 1971 | 5,600 |
| 1978 | 8,100 |
| 1996 | 5,600 |
| 1999 | 6,500 |
| 2002 | 7,200 |
| 2005 | 6,800 |
| 2015 | 6,199 |
In 2005 the plant employed 6,800 workers, organised into three teams. The plant is the largest employer in the Saarland. 79% of the employees were from Germany and 11% from France which is approximately 10 km (6.2 mi) away to the south. There were also significant numbers from Italy and Turkey. 7% of the workforce were female.
This entry incorporates information from the equivalent entry in the French Wikipedia
https://uk.motor1.com/news/296339/ford-c-max-cancelled-europe/
The Ford Focus is a compact car manufactured by Ford Motor Company since 1998. It was created under Alexander Trotman's Ford 2000 plan, which aimed to globalize model development and sell one compact vehicle worldwide. The original Focus was primarily designed by Ford of Europe's German and British teams. Production of the fourth generation Focus began in 2018 in Germany and China.
Saarlouis is a town in Saarland, Germany, capital of the district of Saarlouis. In 2020, the town had a population of 34,409. Saarlouis, as the name implies, is located on the river Saar. It was built as a fortress in 1680 and was named after Louis XIV of France.
The Ford Kent is an internal combustion engine from Ford of Europe. Originally developed in 1959 for the Ford Anglia, it is an in-line four-cylinder overhead-valve–type pushrod engine with a cast-iron cylinder head and block.
The Ford Fiesta is a supermini car marketed by Ford since 1976 over seven generations. Over the years, the Fiesta has mainly been developed and manufactured by Ford's European operations, and has been positioned below the Escort.
The Ford Orion is a small family car that was produced by Ford Europe from 1983 until 1993. A total of 3,534,239 units were sold during the car's ten-year production life.
The Ford Capri is a fastback coupé built by Ford of Europe, designed by Philip T. Clark, who was also involved in the design of the Ford Mustang. It used the mechanical components from the Mk2 Ford Cortina and was intended as the European equivalent of the Ford Mustang. The Capri went on to be highly successful for Ford, selling nearly 1.9 million units in its lifetime. A wide variety of engines were used in the car throughout its production lifespan, which included the Essex and Cologne V6 at the top of the range, while the Kent straight-four and Taunus V4 engines were used in lower-specification models. Although the Capri was not officially replaced, the second-generation Probe was effectively its replacement after the later car's introduction to the European market in 1994.
The Ford CVH engine is a straight-four automobile engine produced by the Ford Motor Company. The engine's name is an acronym for either Compound Valve-angle Hemispherical or Canted Valve Hemispherical, where "Hemispherical" describes the shape of the combustion chamber. The CVH was introduced in 1980 in the third generation European Escort and in 1981 in the first generation North American Escort. Engines for North America were built in Ford's Dearborn Engine plant, while engines for Europe and the UK were built in Ford's then-new Bridgend Engine plant in Wales.
The Ford Escort is a small family car that was manufactured by Ford of Europe from 1968 until 2000. In total there were six generations, spread across three basic platforms beginning with the original rear-wheel drive Mk.1/Mk.2 (1968–1980), the "Erika" front wheel drive Mk.3/Mk.4 (1980–1990), and the final CE-14 Mk.5/Mk.6 (1990–2002) version. Its successor - the Ford Focus - was released in 1998, but the final generation of Escort was gradually phased out, with the panel van version ending production in 2002 in favour of the Ford Transit Connect.
The North American version of the Ford Escort is a range of cars that was sold by Ford from the 1981 to 2003 model years. The direct successor of the Ford Pinto, the Escort also largely overtook the role of the European-imported Ford Fiesta as the smallest vehicle in the Ford model line in North America. Produced across three generations, the first generation was a subcompact; the latter two generations were compact cars. Becoming highly successful in the marketplace, the Escort became the best-selling car in the United States after 1982, a position it would hold for much of the 1980s.
Jaguar Land Rover Halewood is a Jaguar Land Rover factory plant in Halewood, Merseyside, England, and forms the major part of the factory complex in Halewood which is shared with Ford of Britain who manufacture transmissions at the site, and who opened the site in 1962 as their Halewood Body & Assembly plant.
The BC-series manual transmissions are a range of manual transaxles produced by Ford in Europe for its front-wheel-drive automobiles from 1976 onwards. Originally debuting in the Mk.1 Ford Fiesta, the unit was later used in Ford's other front-wheel-drive vehicles, most notably the Ford Escort and Orion.
Ford-Werke GmbH is a German car manufacturer headquartered in Niehl, Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company, which operates two large manufacturing facilities in Germany, a plant in Cologne and a plant in Saarlouis.
The C-segment or Golf-segment is the 3rd category of the European segments for passenger cars and is described as "medium cars". It is equivalent to the Euro NCAP "small family car" size class, and the compact car category in the United States.
Ford of Europe GmbH is a subsidiary company of Ford Motor Company founded in 1967 in Cork, Ireland, with headquarters in Cologne, Germany.
Ford Valencia Body & Assembly (VB&A) is a major car assembly plant located at Almussafes on the southern edge of the Valencia conurbation, Spain. with a production capacity of 450,000 vehicles a year and 8,000 employees, it is Ford's largest manufacturing complex outside the United States.
The automotive industry in Germany is one of the largest employers in the world, with a labor force of over 857,336 (2016) working in the industry.
Ford Dagenham is a major automotive factory located in Dagenham, London, operated by the Ford of Britain subsidiary of Ford Motor Company. The plant opened in 1931 and has produced 10,980,368 cars and more than 39,000,000 engines in its history. It covers around 475 acres and has received over £800 million of capital investment since 2000.
The Ford Focus (first generation) is a compact car that was manufactured by Ford in Europe from 1998 to 2004 and by Ford in North America from 1999 to 2007. Ford began sales of the Focus to Europe in July 1998 and in North America during 1999 for the 2000 model year. Manufacturing in Argentina continued until 2008, and it was still on sale in Brazil until 2009.
The Ford Fiesta Mk1 is the first generation of the Ford Fiesta supermini. Originally introduced in 1976, it was Ford Europe's first multi-national front-wheel-drive automobile, and was available in both 3-door hatchback and panel van derivatives. In 1983, the Fiesta was updated, and the Fiesta Mk2 was introduced.
| United States and Canada |  | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Europe |
| ||||
| Other locations |
| ||||
| Subsidiaries and brands |
|  | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Facilities |
| ||||||||||||
| Passenger cars |
| ||||||||||||
| Commercial vehicles |
| ||||||||||||
