By Mike Ramsey
Ford Motor Co. will increase production at two German assembly
plants to meet demand in Europe, a bright spot in the slow recovery
of the region's auto market.
The Dearborn, Mich.-based auto maker will increase production of
the Fiesta compact car by 300 vehicles a day to 1,850 at its plant
in Cologne and will add 240 cars a day to 1,770 of the Focus, C-Max
and Grand C-Max at its Saarlouis plant.
The Saarlouis plant will start the increase next week and
Cologne will follow in February.
"We are ramping up production of some of our top-selling models
to meet growing demand from Ford customers as well as the normal
industry sales increase in the first half of the year," said Jeff
Wood, vice president of manufacturing for Ford of Europe.
Ford said last week that it is projecting industry sales to
increase in 2015 in the primary 20 European markets to 15.3 million
vehicles, up from 14.6 million last year. Ford is launching a host
of new products this year, including the Galaxy MPV and Mustang
sports car as well as the Mondeo sedan, which is called the Fusion
in the U.S. The Ford Focus, C-Max, and several other models also
are getting a refresh that could help stoke sales.
Ford's market share in those markets rose to 8% in 2014, up from
7.8% a year earlier and its sales rose 7.3%. Ford excludes Russia
and a few other countries in its compilation. Russian results
weren't available.
Write to Mike Ramsey at michael.ramsey@wsj.com
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