Ford Australia

Ford Motor Company of Australia Limited

Type	Subsidiary of Ford Motor Company of the United States
Industry	Automotive
Founded	1925
Founder	Henry Ford
Headquarters	Richmond, Melbourne (Head Office) Campbellfield, Melbourne (Asia Pacific Engineering Centre)
Key people	Graeme Whickman CEO
Number of employees	1300
Website	[1]

The Ford Motor Company of Australia Limited, known by its trading name Ford Australia, is the Australian subsidiary of United States-based automaker Ford Motor Company, it was founded in Geelong, Victoria, in 1925 as an outpost of Ford Motor Company of Canada, Limited. At that time, Ford Canada was a separate company from Ford USA. Henry Ford having granted the manufacturing rights of Ford motor vehicles in the British Empire (later the Commonwealth), excepting the UK, to Canadian investors.

Ford Australia's first products were Model Ts assembled from complete knock-down (CKD) kits provided by Ford of Canada. Nevertheless, it is best known in more recent times for having produced the Falcon, originally a US model introduced in Australia in 1960, but adapted to Australian requirements and road conditions.

On 31 March 1925, Ford announced that Geelong, was to be the Australian headquarters. The first Australian-built Ford was a Model T that came off an improvised production line in a disused Geelong wool storage warehouse in June 1925, while work started on a factory in the nearby suburb of Norlane. In 1928 the factory switched to the Model A and was followed by the Ford V8 in 1932.

In 1934 the company released a coupe utility based upon the Model A American Ford "Closed Cab Pickup Truck" that had been produced for 6 years from 1928. The local designer was Ford engineer Louis (Lewis) Bandt. During the Depression, banks would not extend credit to farmers to purchase passenger cars- in the belief they were unnecessary luxuries. However, they would lend money for the purchase of "working" vehicles. The coupe utility fulfilled the need of farmers to have a workhorse which could also be used "to take the wife to church on Sunday and to the market on Monday".