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New Ford Boss, Bill Osborne says that the company is looking at building more than one front-wheel drive model on its Broadmeadows production line.

According to Osborne, the ability to diversify the production offering at the company's sole Australian manufacturing facility is of paramount importance.

The Broadmeadows plant will be one of few in the world to build rear, all-wheel and front-wheel drive cars on the same line when the new Ford Focus comes on stream in 2010. In addition to the Focus, Ford will continue to build its Falcon, Falcon-derivative and Territory models at the plant.

"I think an astute observer will see really that Ford's moving towards more product variety around the world and that variety is going to demand flexibility in its manufacturing operations. The Broadmeadows facility plant is going to be a key player in that. It's very important for us to have that flexibility to maintain our operations here in Australia.

"The important strategy for our operation is to be able to build a lot of variety", said Osborne.

The current Focus forms the basis for a number of Ford models, including the C-Max people mover and Kuga softroader. It's logical to assume the third generation Focus will also spawn offshoot models. According to Osborne, it's these models that will be equally important to Ford Australia's fortunes.

"Being able to build derivatives off that [C1] platform will be very important for our operation, so we are looking at derivates that might be applicable for this or other markets around the world."

According to Osborne, the company has a strategy to cope with the culture shock of building the new front-wheel drive cars on the same production line as the large RWD/AWD models.

"That strategy is a long-term strategy, it's not one that's designed around just this particular launch of the Focus. Our goal is to be able to build all models in our Broadmeadows facility plant over the next several years, so it's a strategy that's built around flexibility... And it's a global strategy for Ford Motor Company.

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