The Louisville Assembly Plant is an automobile manufacturing plant owned by Ford Motor Company in Louisville, Kentucky. The 3,154,173-square-foot (293,032.3 m2) plant on 400 acres (1.6 km2) opened in 1955 and currently employs a total of 2,000 people.[1] It is located adjacent to the Louisville International Airport on the south side of the city. Ford also operates another plant in Louisville, Kentucky Truck Assembly.
The plant houses approximately 20.1 miles (32.3 km) of conveyor belts. Vehicle output averaged 86 vehicles per hour.
Ford Motor Company began manufacturing Model T cars in Louisville in 1913, moving production to Louisville Assembly in 1955. Most Edsel automobiles (around 67%) were produced here in 1957-1959. The factory produces light trucks, with the Ford Ranger started in 1982 and the Bronco II in 1983. Ford produced its two millionth Ranger/Bronco II at the plant on April 26, 1988.
On February 14, 1990, Ford began producing the Explorer SUV in Louisville after investing $563 million at the plant. It produced one million Explorers as of August 27, 1993. Production of the similar Mercury Mountaineer began in April 1996, and Ranger production gave way in April 1999 to the Explorer Sport Trac.
Production of the Explorer and Mountaineer ended in mid-December 2010. The Explorer moved to Chicago Assembly, and the Mountaineer was discontinued with the demise of the Mercury brand. After a year of conversion to become "the most flexible (automotive assembly operation) in the world," the Louisville plant will begin production of the Ford Escape (which will share a platform and components with the next-generation Ford Kuga) in late 2011,[2] resulting in 1,800 new jobs. The Escape was previously built at Kansas City Assembly.[3]