St. Thomas Assembly was an automobile plant located in

Southwold, Ontario Southwold is a township in Elgin County, in Ontario, Canada, located on the north shore of Lake Erie. It is a rich agricultural zone producing predominantly corn and soybeans. It is part of the London census metropolitan area. History The Sout ...

, Canada, close to the Talbotville community and to the nearby city of St. Thomas. The facility, situated on a site, opened in 1967, building the Ford Falcon. Flexible fuel vehicles (FFV) capable of operating on

ethanol fuel Ethanol fuel is ethyl alcohol, the same type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, used as fuel. It is most often used as a motor fuel, mainly as a biofuel additive for gasoline. The first production car running entirely on ethanol was t ...

were manufactured there during the later years of the assembly plant. Ford's plans for sustainability and reduction of fossil fuel consumption relied on the St. Thomas Plant and its Lincoln Town Car vehicles for years. It also produced the final Mercury vehicle, a

Mercury Grand Marquis The Mercury Grand Marquis is an automobile that was sold by the Mercury division of Ford Motor Company from 1975 until 2011. From 1975 until 1982, it was the premium model of the Mercury Marquis line of full-size sedans, becoming a standalone ...

, after Ford decided to discontinue the Mercury brand after the 2011 model year. Following the closure of the

Wixom Assembly Plant The Ford Wixom Assembly Plant was a Ford Motor Company manufacturing facility in Wixom, Michigan, with production reaching 6,648,806 over the fifty years it was operational (1957–2007). History As one of Ford's largest and oldest manufacturing ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

, production of the

Lincoln Town Car The Lincoln Town Car is a model line of full-size luxury sedans that was marketed by the Lincoln division of the American automaker Ford Motor Company. Deriving its name from a limousine body style, Lincoln marketed the Town Car from 1981 to ...

(which was the only

Ford Panther platform The Ford Panther platform was an automobile platform that was used by Ford Motor Company from the 1979 to 2012 model years. Following the downsizing of the General Motors B-bodies and C-bodies by two years, the Panther platform marked the e ...

vehicle to be produced at the Plant) moved to St. Thomas Assembly starting with the 2007

model year The model year (sometimes abbreviated "MY") is a method of describing the version of a product which has been produced over multiple years. The model year may or may not be the same as the calendar year in which the product was manufactured. ...

. This allowed the

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...

to consolidate production of all three

vehicles (the

Ford Crown Victoria The Ford Crown Victoria ("Crown Vic") is a full-size sedan that was marketed and manufactured by Ford. The successor to the Ford LTD Crown Victoria, two generations of the model line were produced from the 1992 to 2012 model years. The Fo ...

, the

, and the

to a single assembly plant. The plant closed on September 15, 2011. The last Crown Victoria built by the remaining 300 employees was sent to Saudi Arabia.

Decommissioning Decommissioning is a general term for a formal process to remove something from an active status, and may refer to: Infrastructure * Decommissioned offshore * Decommissioned highway * Greenfield status of former industrial sites * Nuclear decommi ...

did not start until mid-2015. The plant had been largely demolished by the end of 2016, with only the wastewater treatment facility left standing as of February 2017. An initial proposal to have the site developed as a solar farm fell through when regulatory approval was not obtained, but decommissioning was completed in 2019, with the property becoming available for sale. In 2021,

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purchased the site to build a fulfillment center.

Products

In total, over eight million vehicles were produced by St. Thomas Assembly from 1967 to 2011.The Crown Victoria: Southwestern Ontario's roadmaster
'' London Free Press'', June 4, 2017 Alongside the vehicles of the Ford Panther platform, St. Thomas also produced the Ford Falcon, Ford Maverick (Mercury Comet), Ford Pinto (Mercury Bobcat), Ford Fairmont (Mercury Zephyr), and Ford Escort EXP (Mercury LN7).

Ford

Mercury

Lincoln

References

{{Ford factories Ford factories Former motor vehicle assembly plants Motor vehicle assembly plants in Canada Buildings and structures in Elgin County 1967 establishments in Ontario 2011 disestablishments in Ontario