The Ford Union (original spelling: ) is a former joint venture of the
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...
, the Russian
Lada importer Lada-OMC and the Belarusian government. It was located in
Apčak near the city of
Minsk
Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative stat ...
in Belarus. Ford has invested a capital of US$10.000.000 for building this plant. So it was the most expensive plant of the Ford concern in Western Europe at this time. The company existed from 1997 up to 2000 when it was closed due to low sales.
The Ford Union was not a manufacturer, it was only an assembler of
SKD kits. The vehicles assembled by the Belarusian plant can be identified by the manufacturer code ''Y4F'' on the start on the
VIN
Vin or VIN may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Vîn TV, a Kurdish language satellite television channel founded in 2007
* ''Vos Iz Neias?'', an American Jewish online news site
* Coastal radio station VIN Geraldton (callsign), a statio ...
and an ''R'' on the eleventh position for the plant identification.
The plant become well known on 23 July 1997 as president
Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko was invited to a press conference with five strategically selected foreign journalists to discuss a predicted failure which later proved true.
Model overview
Image:Ford Transit front 20080222.jpg, Ford Transit
The Ford Transit is a family of light commercial vehicles manufactured by the Ford Motor Company since 1965, primarily as a cargo van, but also available in other configurations including a large passenger van (marketed as the Ford Tourneo in ...
1997–2000
Image:Ford Escort front 20080110.jpg, Ford Escort
1997–2000
Image:Ford Escort van blue.JPG, Ford Escort Courier
Ford Escort Van ( GB)
Ford Express ( RUS)
1997–2000
Sources
Ford of Europe
Car manufacturers of Belarus
Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1997
Defunct manufacturing companies of Belarus
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