THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 21, 1994 TAG: 9410210660
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
The Ford Motor Co. signaled a long-term commitment to its assembly plant here Thursday, by announcing a $290 million expansion that will create 400 new jobs.
The plant, which turns out the popular F-series pickups, will get a new body shop that will allow it to build a newly designed, full-sized pickup beginning with the 1996 model year, Ford said.
For a manufacturing plant built in 1925, getting the go-ahead to build a new series of pickups is akin to Oceana Naval Air Station getting a new squadron - it guarantees jobs, at least for the near future.
``Ford doesn't build pickup trucks just in Norfolk,'' Gov. George F. Allen said Thursday during a ceremony with company officials at the plant. ``They can build them anywhere. They could have selected many other places for this investment.''
The 400 new jobs will bring the plant's work force to about 2,300 and help boost production from 653 pickups a day to 720, said Dale McKeehan, vice president of vehicle operations for Ford.
Detroit's Big Three automakers are scrambling to become more efficient. Well-run plants will survive and get more work. Inefficient, run-down plants could be minimized, or even closed.
Ford's latest investment brings to $521 million the amount it has spent during the past three years retooling and expanding the Norfolk plant. A $180 million paint plant was completed in August 1993. The expanded facility will be 2.2 million square feet - the equivalent of 11 Wal-Mart superstores - when construction is complete.
Operators in the new 307,000-square-foot body shop, aided by robotic equipment, will assemble light truck cabs and boxes from sheet metal parts. Construction of the building, begun in July, is expected to be finished in time for production startup in November 1995.
``There's still a high demand for the F-series out there, and Ford's not blind to that,'' said Don Lenhart, a resident engineer at the Norfolk facility.
The F-series pickups have been the best-selling vehicles in the United States for the past 13 years. Ford plants is Louisville; Kansas City, Mo.; Wayne, Mich.; and Ontario, Canada, also make F-series pickups.
The Norfolk plant, which Ford had considered scaling down in the past, has been in continuous production - with the exception of its use by the government during World War II - since 1925. The city of Norfolk bought the first Ford, and the mayor drove it off the assembly line.
The city and state both are contributing to the new expansion. Strickland said state tax credits would amount to $300,000 in 1995, state training credits will reimburse Ford an additional $500,000 and the state will supplement rail improvements to the tune of $150,000 or more. The city will work with Ford to improve roads leading to the plant, a project that could mean millions of dollars of work. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Ford's F-series trucks have been the nation's best-selling vehicles
for 13 years.
by CNB