Ford not planning to compete with Renault’s Logan

Fleming was in Romania on Friday to attend the official takeover last year from the Romanian state of the car maker by the U.S. giant.
“The new car, to be launched by the mid-2010, will definitely not be the Fiesta model. It will only be produced in Romania and will be exported all over Europe,” Fleming added.

By 2010, Ford will produce some 60,000 Transit Connect vehicles at the Craiova factory. As new models are developed, Ford officials plan to increase the factory’s capacity to up to 300,000 units per year.

However, Logan is likely to have a new competitor, as Czech car manufacturer Skoda, whose products are very popular on the local market, recently announced it planned to develop a low-cost model to compete with Dacia’s Logan.

President Traian Basescu, who also attended Friday’s ceremony, told Ford officials that if they succeed to compete with Renault on the local market, they will definitely be successful on foreign markets. “For the first time in Romania, there will be huge competition between two car producers,” Basescu said.