Ford Plant in St. Paul Mn Closed

[Lead Shoes]

It was the oldest Ford plant in operation, having been first built in 1924, the plant was placed by the river for the use of a hydroelectric dam to produce electricity to cut the cost of production. The plant manufactured the Ford Ranger pickup truck for nearly 30 years, an estimated 800 workers lost their job today as the last Ranger rolled off the line at 8am.

Ford decided to stop producing the ranger due to lack of sales. It plans to demolish the plant and the history within it to sell all 112 acres of land on the Mississippi for redevelopment and of course a fat profit.

Surely a day to be remembered in automotive history

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http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2011/12/16/st-paul-ford-plant-closes-after-86-years/

 

[Nick R]

Would be nice to see Ford move production of the Fusion to the plant, or something but that won't happen.

 

[Lead Shoes]

The land it sits on is worth a lot of money, and to transform the plant to produce that platform is likely an investment they do not want to make, the union is not happy about them closing the plant totally.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Very, VERY sad.

 

[01rangerxl]

A sad day indeed.

My truck will continue to proudly display its Twin Cities Assembly Plant sticker in the back window.

 

[NHGUY]

Ford needs the money to pay off all their loans(the ones they took to avoid the bankruptcy that GM and Chrysler went thru),and to repay all the money needed for recently released vehicles (Focus,Fiesta),not to mention the new engines...Ford's been spending a lot of money while still in the hole.

 

[artificialist]

If the Ranger was dramatically redesigned more often, this wouldn't have happened.

 

[earlyre]

To me the sadness of this is the demise of all the domestic small trucks. s-10/colorado a few years ago, Dakota more recently, and now the ranger... I can only hope this means that in a couple years, they will bring in some of their "ute" models from down under.
side note -
while yes sad to see this plant close, ford is moving one of the Full Size truck lines back to the states from Mexico.
in early '13 i believe, Cleveland area production of Econoline vans will end, and the plant will switch over to F-Series, instead of closing as they originally intended.

at that time, the replacement van, will be a version of the European Ford Transit (similar to the Dodge/Mercedes/Freightliner Sprinter) which the Kansas City plant is being/will be retooled to produce.

 

[Mr Nice]

Originally Posted By: artificialist
If the Ranger was dramatically redesigned more often, this wouldn't have happened.


It was also a very small profit margin on the Ranger compared to the bigger trucks that people want. Small trucks are not a big segment of the market.

 

[Michael_P]

I have heard about Ford going to build an F100 similar in size to the 97-03 F150.

Here is one of many articles

I hope these people find new work in this tough economy.

 

[45ACP]

Originally Posted By: 01rangerxl
A sad day indeed.

My truck will continue to proudly display its Twin Cities Assembly Plant sticker in the back window.


I think your truck was built at the Ford plant in Edison, NJ (Ranger assembly plant) that closed, wasnt it?

btw... family member had a Sable that had a UAW sticker on the back window, apparently from the dealer or factory. Was on until that car got smashed.

 

[45ACP]

Originally Posted By: LT4 Vette
Originally Posted By: artificialist
If the Ranger was dramatically redesigned more often, this wouldn't have happened.


It was also a very small profit margin on the Ranger compared to the bigger trucks that people want. Small trucks are not a big segment of the market.



The ranger stuck around MANY years past its originally planned axe date of 05, up until MY 2009 or even 2010 i -think.- There was that much demand, IIRC. (Redesigned grill, shared paltform with Mazda B2300 pickup, dont know why.)

 

[91344George]

Originally Posted By: artificialist
If the Ranger was dramatically redesigned more often, this wouldn't have happened.


It seems to me that Ford wanted to kill this model.

As far as not a big profit on each unit, maybe so but because the production costs were long since amortized the profit was bigger than you'd think.


I THINK THIS MOVE IS A HUGE MISTAKE.

Not to forget that yet another 800 GOOD PAYING JOBS ARE GONE!

 

[01rangerxl]

Originally Posted By: 45ACP
Originally Posted By: 01rangerxl
A sad day indeed.

My truck will continue to proudly display its Twin Cities Assembly Plant sticker in the back window.


I think your truck was built at the Ford plant in Edison, NJ (Ranger assembly plant) that closed, wasnt it?

btw... family member had a Sable that had a UAW sticker on the back window, apparently from the dealer or factory. Was on until that car got smashed.

My 2002 Ranger was built at the St. Paul plant. I did have a 2001 Ranger built at the Edison plant though.

 

[Clevy]

Originally Posted By: Brenden
The land it sits on is worth a lot of money, and to transform the plant to produce that platform is likely an investment they do not want to make, the union is not happy about them closing the plant totally.

The union. Who cares what a team of bureaucrats making a living off the backs of the people who lost their jobs. Don't kid yourself. Ford axed it because of the union. No employer likes to be controlled by the labour they employ. I Annette ford could have re-tooled for different vehicle,they chose not to. It's a sad day for the people who lost their jobs however I have no sympathy for the union or their supporters.
How much we gonna bet that these pro union blah blah blah people shop at walmart. Made in china.

 

[MNgopher]

Its got nothing to do with the union in this case. Its the same union across the company. The workers were offered buyouts many years ago along with job retraining. Many of the workers at the plant now are replacements for long term employees and made much less as a result. Some of the "replacements" were employees who took 100k buyouts, and then reapplied for jobs at lower wages as ford kept extending the closing date for several years.

Long story short, this plant was slated for closure for many reasons, not the least of which is how old it is, which somewhat hurt its flexibility for re-tooling the plant for something else. Making the same product without any retooling for years was another factor. The longer the ranger went with no investment, the more likely a target the plant was. St. Paul is also off the beaten path for car assembly these days.

Sad days, but I also don't fault Ford for doing what it needs to to remain competitive.

 

[45ACP]

Originally Posted By: 01rangerxl
Originally Posted By: 45ACP
Originally Posted By: 01rangerxl
A sad day indeed.

My truck will continue to proudly display its Twin Cities Assembly Plant sticker in the back window.


I think your truck was built at the Ford plant in Edison, NJ (Ranger assembly plant) that closed, wasnt it?

btw... family member had a Sable that had a UAW sticker on the back window, apparently from the dealer or factory. Was on until that car got smashed.

My 2002 Ranger was built at the St. Paul plant. I did have a 2001 Ranger built at the Edison plant though.


I do wonder if one is better than the other (quality.) I know of other models built at double plants (GMC in Canada, Chevy in Michigan) etc.

Off-topic, but one of GM's best engines, the 2.5L Iron Duke, was built in a Michigan engine plant. And its reliability is VERY high.

 

[91344George]

Even without unions everything can be made cheaper in China.

You cannot compete with slave wages unless your own country has them as well. I wonder where all these union bashers will be when their children live like the typical Chinese serf?

 

[01rangerxl]

Originally Posted By: 45ACP


I do wonder if one is better than the other (quality.) I know of other models built at double plants (GMC in Canada, Chevy in Michigan) etc.


I can't tell a difference in how the two trucks were put together. All of the differences can be attributed to the trim level/powertrain. For example, the 2002 truck is a lot quieter because the XLT package added a lot of insulation to the cab and under the hood.

I think the quality can probably be kept very precise between two plants...I had to replace the passenger side door on the truck after a wreck. I went to the junkyard with a couple friends and we found a 1994 Splash that just happened to be black with manual windows, and it had a good complete passenger side door. We took the door off the Splash and brought it home. The hinges on the truck were not damaged, so we just bolted the 1994 door up to the 2002 hinges. I pushed the door shut after the bolts were in and it latched perfectly! No adjustments required! The two trucks may or may not have been from the same plant, but either way, millions of Rangers were produced between when these trucks rolled off the line. That's pretty consistent manufacturing.

 

[artificialist]

Originally Posted By: 91344George
Even without unions everything can be made cheaper in China.

You cannot compete with slave wages unless your own country has them as well. I wonder where all these union bashers will be when their children live like the typical Chinese serf?

Eventually the Chinese standard of living will rise, and the environmental destruction poo will hit the fan and something will be done about that.

Look what happened in Japan. During the '60s, we were all told that they were going to take over that way and trash the earth to get there. They couldn't cover up the disaster of the Minimata bleach factory, and had to fix the environment. Wages on other things rose as well. If the American cars of the '70s and '80s were all they could be, very few Japanese cars would have had any fame.