I'm backing your call that Ford Australia's manufacturing will be gone sooner than the publicised deadline. I've been trying to buy a base-model Ford Falcon ute, the car we have purchased for the past 15 years for work. The dealers can't get them because Ford is making so few. Walk into a Ford dealer and no one is talking Falcon. I had one country dealer who wouldn't even quote me on one because he couldn't guarantee supply.
One of my mates has had similar troubles getting an XR6 ute.