Ford Starts Fiesta Production

Production of Ford’s popular four-door Fiesta sedan kicked off last week at Ford India’s passenger car manufacturing facility in Maraimalai Nagar, near Chennai.

The Maraimalai Nagar engine plant will produce the advanced 1.5L Ti-VCT petrol and Duratorq TDCi diesel engines for the All-New Fiesta. The 172,175 square metre Maraimalai Nagar plant is the sixth Ford facility in the world to produce Fiesta. The other facilities are located in Nanjing, China; Cologne, Germany; Valencia, Spain; Cuautitlán, Mexico; and Rayong, Thailand. to further support its sales and export growth plans in India. When the expansion programme is completed in mid-2012, powertrain production capacity will increase from 250,000 to 330,000 units per year.

The All-New Fiesta, which will be available in showrooms later this year, is the first of eight new vehicles that Ford is planning to introduce into India by the middle of this decade.