FORD has announced that the Halewood plant on Merseyside will become the European source for a planned new vehicle - as long as government investment levels, union agreements and performance targets are all met. Although the plant will continue to produce the present model through to the year 2000, a new car - probably an MPV version of the next Escort - will be made at Halewood.

A new Escort is expected to be launched next year with production taking place at Ford plants in Germany and Spain. However, Ford intends to continue to build the existing Escort model at Halewood and will predominantly target emerging markets. But,we understand that in Britain the current Escort will live on for at least two years as the 'Escort Classic' in similar style to the current Fiesta Classic. Although an Escort-based MPV has been described as a niche vehicle, the market for smaller people carriers is expected to grow rapidly over the next five years.