Ford temporarily halts production of Transit and Transit Custom

As a result of the industry-wide global semiconductor shortage and, in particular, the recent fire at a supplier facility in Japan, as well as winter storms in Texas, Ford says it will temporarily stop production of both the Transit Custom (including the Tourneo people-carrier) and 2-tonne Transit at its production facility in Gölcük, Turkey.

The semiconductor supply issue is affecting much of the global auto industry and several of Ford’s European plants were forced to take downtime in the first quarter of 2021, with further action planned in quarter two.

The company says it is closely monitoring the situation and adjusting production schedules where needed to minimise the effect on employees, suppliers, customers and dealers across Europe. Fords says that customer-sold vehicle orders will be prioritised and it is working to improve the situation as quickly as possible. 

The shutdown in Turkey (where the Transit and Transit Custom are built) commenced on April 19 and will continue until June 13, which includes two planned weeks of annual summer shutdown, which have been brought forward, and a national holiday week. The effects of production loss caused by the suspension of production is expected to be reduced by an increase in production pace in the following months.

Of course, there will be repercussions for Ford-based motorhomes. Russell Hensman, Marketing Manager at Auto-Trail, which builds its F-Line motorhomes on the Transit chassis-cab advised: “We have been very lucky with the Ford shutdown, as our order had been completed just before the announcement, so no delays for us currently. Obviously, this will have a knock-on effect further down the line, but we are not sure what at this time.”

Chausson is another Trigano Group brand that builds motorhomes on the Transit. Nick Markl, UK Sales Manager, commented: “As the Chausson brand in the UK is predominantly reliant on the Ford chassis, this will unfortunately have an effect on the delivery times of motorhomes to our UK dealer network.

"At this time we have been able to minimise cancellations of any retail sold vehicles. We are, however, in the process of rescheduling the production for the start of the 2022 season based on the current information being provided from the chassis manufacturers.”

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