From Falcon to Focus Motor Company?

The well-worn pun 'Falcon Motor Company' is one step closer to retirement following yesterday's announcement that Ford Motor Company's Australia operation will once again build small cars Down Under.

With the Blue Oval to build the third-generation Euro-designed small car at Campbellfield from 2011, the focus of Ford Australia's future plans will no longer be Falcon (and its half-brother Territory). Expect Ford to start to build its small car star to a point where it will gets at least equal billing with its large car stablemate.

Ford signalled its intentions to champion Focus with an announcement early this month that it will spend $10m in the short term promoting the recent update of the model (more here). This unprecedented spend should have tipped the carmaker's hand.

Earlier signals included Ford boss Gorman's warnings to Falcon-centric programs like V8 Supercars that their share of the promotional pie was definitely going to shrink (more here).

Ford boss Tom Gorman told the Carsales Network that "absolutely" yesterday's announcement would signal an increase in the Blue Oval's emphasis on the small car nameplate.

"Because we are looking at 2011 as a great opportunity for a step-up [in sales volumes], what we really see ourselves doing [in the lead up] is continuing to build that brand in the marketplace and strengthen the [Focus] brand. Right now the challenge for us is to make it a core product," Ford boss Tom Gorman said.

"From month to month we can be number three in that [small car] segment. But if we do 2000 [Focus sales] a month we feel pretty good about ourselves. The challenge we put out to our dealers and to our team internally now is that 2000 has to be the bare minimum for us," he told the Carsales Network.

"We ought to be able to do a lot more than that if you look at what Corolla does in this segment... Or what Mazda 3 does -- they're knocking out 3000-plus religiously and we think we can do that. By localising Focus, making it more competitive, giving us a little more control on delivery and content, we think we can go after the business customer more than we do today," he opined.

"We do quite well with the private buyer, but we're not in the business fleet enough and clearly in government we can do more there.

"As we build our capability and build the strength of that brand we can take it [Focus] to a new height. Frankly I think the 40,000 [per year total] is conservative -- if we just did 3000 [sales] a month we'd do 36,000 locally."

But Falcon, as a private and fleet car, is far from dead, Gorman opines.

"I think we have to be careful here -- we've got a really good news story on Focus and the quick assumption may be we've got a bad news story somewhere else... We don't.

"We've taken an opportunity to address an issue in the marketplace, but we're very, very much committed to the Falcon [and Territory]. Those people that want rear-wheel drive, six-cylinder or V8 power, with great safety, great functionality, great value for money -- that's going to be what keeps that segment going," he said.

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