Another Ford Production Plant Closes in Norfolk

Ford Motor Company has a share of both good and bad news over the net. But unfortunately, Ford is now known to be one among the three famous cash-craving car companies in the US. General Motors Corporation as well as the Chrysler Group is also part of the domestic auto makers that is experiencing hardships at present.

However, in fairness to Ford, most of the car models they made this year have received a lot of quality recognition. Ford Taurus X and Jaguar X-type are just few among the cars on their line-up that received positive news this week. It was impressive that no matter how they are suffering from the present economical situation, they still manage to create quality and heavy-duty car models for the customers. But things are not going well still. Ford had to cut another production plant operation in order to compensate for their budget-cutting situation.

Ford already had the last batch of pickup truck rolled off its production plant in Norfolk this morning. And sadly, this was the last vehicle that was produced on this plant. Ford was reported seeing the factory workers going out of the plant wearing memorial shirts. At 8 am these employees were noted to file out of the assembly plant wearing royal blue shirt that has no prints on front. However, the back of their shirt says “R-I-P Ford Norfolk Assembly Plant April 20, 1925 - June 28, 2007”. The news was taken from the Virginian-Pilot.

Last year, Ford Motor Company announced that they have plans of closing the Norfolk Assembly plant. The plant is where the F-150 pick up trucks are made. Before, there are more than 23,000 factory workers that worked on the assembly plant but the number of employees decreased as the years passed.

The plant managers purchased the truck and it went through chances to Portsmouth’s Corey Bauswell. The truck was seen driven out of the plant at around 8:20 a.m.

United Auto Workers Local 919’s President Chris Kimmons said, he did not plan to be on the plant’s last day of operation. However, he was spotted on the union hall together with the guys. It was like attending a funeral he said. He even uttered, "You don’t want to go, but you know you’ve got to be there."

This was the last day of the Norfolk Ford’s assembly plant operation. I hope this is the last. Toyota was right when they decided to slow down on making local assembly plants in the US. I guess Ford should have done it before.