Why Ford Australia had to go down the remanufacturing route to get the 2023 F-150 into local showrooms

Ford Australia’s announcement that it will sell the F-150 pick-up from mid-2023 might not be all that surprising, but importing the model and right-hand-drive converting will certainly raise a few eyebrows.

For starters, why can’t a company like Ford produce the F-150 in right-hand-drive from factory?

The simple answer is volume.

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Australia is just such a small market for the F-150 compared with the US that retooling an entire production line for right-hand drive would not make sense.

Last year, North American sales of the F-150 topped 842,405 units, making it the most popular model in the market.

For context, the entire Australian automotive industry sold 1,049,831 units in 2021.

This means that more F-150s were sold in North America last year than the combined sales of Australia’s top 10 brands that include heavyweights like Toyota, Mazda, Hyundai, Volkswagen and Kia.

The remanufacturing process then is a workaround that allows Ford Australia to get its hands on an exciting new model, and will keep prices competitive against other right-hand-drive-converted full-size trucks like the Ram 1500 and Chevrolet Silverado.

Ford Australia has partnered with RMA Automotive Holdings to carry out the work, with Ford engineers that have worked on the new-gen Ranger and Everest working on the remanufacturing process.

So confident is Ford in the process that it backs the F-150 with a full five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty like every other model in its line-up.

Speaking to media at the announcement, Ford Australia boss Andrew Birkic said the remanufacturing process is “the right path” for the 2023 F-150.

“When it comes to remanufacturing, the approach we’ve adopted is a very significant, detailed and rigorous process within Ford,” he said.

“We’ve chosen our partner very closely, we’ve also had a lot of internal discussions, so this has been through very high levels of senior management within Ford Motor Company.

“We’re not doing one offs, we’re not doing small volume, the facility that the team will have in Melbourne … will be significant.

“We recognise there’s a market there and … we need to ensure the remanufacturing approach is robust and that’s what we’ll focus on – it has to meet the ADRs, it has to meet the safety standards and that’s super important to us.”

Ford Australia global trucks enterprise manager Natalie Manariti would not be drawn on how many F-150s the partnership could produce in a day, or any sales targets, but hinted the numbers would be significant.

“We’re still working through the fine details,” she said. “There is a dedicated manufacturing facility that will be set up in Melbourne to handle the remanufacturing of our vehicles from left to right.

“We’ll share those [details] closer to launch.

“This isn’t a hobby project for us … so it’s the real deal, we’re really looking forward to bringing it back.”

Mr Birkic said the business case makes sense to bring back the F-150 to Aussie showrooms after a nearly 30-year hiatus, especially as full-sized utes pick up in popularity.

“There’s obviously a market out there, there’s some really stiff competition, we recognise that, what we’re really going to be focussing on is the engineering, getting that right, getting the remanufacturing setup right, then we’ll pivot towards sales,” he said.

“But certainly, there’s a market there, and we know we have a very competitive truck.”

Last year, Ram found 3819 new homes for its 1500 model, while the GMSV sold 2114 examples of the Chevrolet Silverado.

This might make the full-size utes less popular than the likes of the Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger, but they still managed to outsell the Jeep Gladiator (1273) and SsangYong Musso (1883) in 2021.