Genk Body & Assembly
Former EuroFord assembly plant in Belgium
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Genk Body & Assembly was a Ford automobile factory in Genk, Belgium, just over an hour to the west of the company's European head office in Cologne, Germany. The site spanned 6,135,630 square feet (140.9 acres). The plant employed approximately 4,300 workers when it closed in 2014.[1]
The plant opened in 1964. The first mainstream car built there was Ford's first front-wheel drive volume model, the Ford Taunus P4. Later on, the plant focused on producing mid-sized family cars including the company's Sierra and Mondeo models.
Models built
| Image | Model | Years | Number | Image | Model | Years | Number | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Ford Taunus P4/12M | 1963-1966 | 314,270 | _Ghia_hatchback_01.jpg){kind=small} | Ford Mondeo II | 1996-2000 | 1,200,069 | |
 | Ford Taunus P5/17M | 1965-1966 | 13,765 |  | Ford Transit VI | 2000-2004 | 384,238 | |
 | Ford Transit II/III/IV/V | 1965-2000 | 1,857,635 |  | Ford Mondeo III | 2000-2007 | 1,418,515 | |
 | Ford Taunus P6 12M/15M | 1966-1970 | 518,602 |  | Ford S-MAX I | 2006-2010 | 235,890 | |
 | Ford Escort | 1968-1970 | 258,205 |  | Ford Galaxy III | 2006-2010 | 120,192 | |
 | Ford Taunus P7/20M | 1969-1970 | 19,534 |  | Ford Mondeo IV | 2007-2010 | 567,582 | |
 | Ford Taunus | 1970-1982 | 2,695,796 | .jpg) | Ford Mondeo IVb | 2010-2014 | 348 825 | |
 | Ford Sierra I | 1982-1992 | 2,741,713 |  | Ford S-MAX Ib | 2010-2014 | 194 685 | |
 | Ford Mondeo I | 1992-1996 | 1,362,538 |  | Ford Galaxy IIIb | 2010-2014 | 111 123 |
Closure
Ford announced in October 2012 that it was planning to close its Genk plant at the end of 2014 in response to longstanding over-capacity problems in Europe,[2][3] as part of a larger closure plan that will see the manufacturer's European capacity decreased by 20%, with further capacity cuts planned should the company not succeed in returning to higher European sales volumes.[4] The next generation of the Ford Mondeo was assembled, for the European market, at the Valencia plant.
Reports in March 2013 indicated that agreement with the workers' representatives would see Ford paying out an average of €144,000 (at the time equivalent to US$187,500) for each of the 4,000 workers to be laid off. It was noted that this was significantly below the US$202,700 per worker that had been the price reportedly paid by General Motors at the closure in 2010 of their Antwerp facility.[4]
At the end of 2016 it was estimated that the decontamination of the site would cost €11.4 million.[5]
