Ford to build Transit Connect and small class car in Craiova, Romania. Matiz still in production until April 2008

Ford will start at the newly acquired Craiova, Southern Romania plant the production of the Transit Connect commercial vehicle to be launched in mid 2009. By 2010, the Craiova factory will also start production of a a small class car to be build in Romania exclusively for export only, Ford Europe CEO John Fleming said in Friday.

He said Ford was proud to integrate the Craiova plant in the Ford family, he said, after saluting Craiova plant workers in Romanian.

He said that Ford promised to invest 677 million euro in the Craiova plant, to raise production, the number of workers and all activities and planned to stick to the promise.

He also said the production of the locally made Matiz car will continue in Craiova until late April. The production of the Daewoo Matiz model, relaunched in early March, will continue until the end of next month, Mihai Radu, sales and service manager at the former Daewoo Craiova plant, told HotNews.ro.

Some 2,500 Matiz cars will be made by then and the production of engines and other components for General Motors will continue until mid 2009 because of existing orders, Mihai Radu said.