Fiesta a tasty Thai take away

Taking advantage of that country's free trade agreement with Australia. The car, due to go on sale here early in 2009, will be designed and engineered in Europe but being built in Thailand, which gives Ford Australia a pricing edge.

The Thai deal means the car will not have the 10 per cent import tariff levied on the existing Fiesta imported from Europe.

The car will resemble the Verve concept car at the Frankfurt Motor Show. Ford president Tom Gorman says the move will help position the Fiesta as a more competitive car.

Ford averages about 500 Fiestas a month, a figure Gorman believes can be improved.

“We can do more with Fiestas,” he says. “And we will when they come out of Thailand.”

While the bread-and-butter Fiestas will come out of Thailand, Gorman expects the high-performance ST variants will continue to be sourced from Europe.

The Verve blends Ford's 'kinetic design' elements, which were inspired by the Iosis concept car and have trickled down into production cars such as the just-released Mondeo.

As well as the Fiesta, the plant will also build the latest Mazda2 for ASEAN markets.

Ford and Mazda operate a joint-venture AutoAlliance Thailand plant, which has been building pick-ups for several years.

The factory, which will also build the Mazda2, will be added to AutoAlliance's existing set-up at Rayong. It will build 100,000 light cars annually. The companies are spending more than $555 million on the plant with costs to be split evenly.

As well as having the capacity to build the Fiesta and Mazda2, the plant will be able to accommodate assembly of passenger cars up to the mid-size C and D segments, such as the latest Mazda6.

To maximise manufacturing efficiencies it will feature an integrated production line from stamping through to final assembly. Combined with the annual output from the pick-up plant, AAT's production capacity, including complete knockdown (CKD) units, will expand to 275,000 units from its 175,000 units per year.

Ford is one of several companies taking advantage of the Thai FTA. Honda, Nissan and Mazda source vehicles from Thailand for Australia.