The Ford Falcon has 391 days left before the last car rolls off the blue oval's Broadmeadow production line.

Almost two-and-a-half years after then Ford Australia President, Bob Graziano, confirmed the car maker would close down its local operations, sending the Australian automotive industry into a spiralling freefall with both Holden and Toyota following suit soon after, Ford has confirmed that October 7, 2016 will see the last batch of cars rolling off the line.

The car maker informed its staff this morning, and although it has yet to issue a formal announcement company spokesman Wes Sherwood confirmed the date to Drive today.

"We have already confirmed that we will be transitioning from a manufacturer to a full vehicle importer in Australia and that October 2016 was our time frame," Sherwood said.

"Now, we are in the stages of planning our production schedule and calendar for 2016. And, to complete manufacturing by the end of October, we will have to roll the last vehicles off the line on October 7 to begin the process of de-commissioning the facilities."

While Sherwood confirmed the end date, Ford has yet to lock-in precisely which vehicle will be the last Australian-built Ford.

"We will certainly plan those details with the manufacturing team in due course, but needless to say there will be a number of vehicles produced that day and we intend to celebrate the legacy in the most appropriate way," he said.

From the end of October 2016, after the final production processes have been completed on the last locally-built cars, Ford plans to de-commission its vehicle assembly operations and put most of the facilities within the 44-acre site up for sale.

Some, however, will be maintained as part of Ford Australia's local engineering outpost, which will keep a strong workforce of designers and engineers that will assist with the development of global products for Ford.

The company's sales, marketing and executive management team have already begun the transition out of Broadmeadows, recently re-locating to a new corporate head office in the inner-eastern Melbourne suburb of Richmond.

Ford has operated its Broadmeadows manufacturing plant since 1959.

source: http://www.smh.com.au