Ford Motor Company is idling its assembly plant in Flat Rock, Michigan after US sales of the Mustang pony car slipped 32 percent last month, reports Bloomberg.
The tumble in Mustang sales was enough to allow the redesigned Chevrolet Camaro to overtake Ford’s pony car for the first time in nearly two years.
Ford’s Flat Rock Assembly Plant, which also produces the Lincoln Continental luxury sedan, will reopen on October 17th. The plant’s 3,702 hourly workers will be paid during the week-long shutdown. Ford produced the mid-size Fusion sedan at the Flat Rock plant until February of this year, at which point slowing sales prompted the automaker to shift production to Hermosillo, Mexico.
In the US market, the last time the Chevy Camaro outsold the Ford Mustang was in October of 2014. The Mustang has fared far better than its GM rival since its redesign for the 2015 model year, and by the end of August of this year, it had amassed a 33,000-unit lead on the Camaro for 2016. But Ford CEO Mark Fields thinks that the US auto market has plateaued, according to Bloomberg, and that industry-wide, sales are slowing.
Comments
NOW I Know why five months have gone by and my Mustang (dealer-ordered is still mia! They don’t tell you this when you order your car and keep your money though, do they! They SHOULD build the ordered cars before shutting the plant down! WTF!!