Ford Focus creates history, it is Ford's 350 Millionth Vehicle and the world's best selling car so far in 2012

Landmarks come and go in every company's life cycle but this is one almighty landmark that Ford celebrated recently. On 31-Aug-2012, the American manufacturer rolled out its, hold your breath, 350 Millionth Vehicle off its assembly line. Yes, you read that right. It is not 1, not 10, heck not even 100, it is a whopping 350 Million. Before you start counting the number of zeros in that number, here are some facts given by John Fleming, Executive Vice-President of global manufacturing at Ford, on the occasion. "Producing 350 million vehicles is equivalent to producing one vehicle every 10 seconds for our 109-year history. If placed end to end, the vehicles would stretch to the moon and back - twice. To put that in the right perspective, Ford would have rolled out a vehicle by the time you finish reading this sentence and the one immediately afterwards.

The car that marked the event was a red 2012 Focus Hatchback manufactured at Ford Thailand Manufacturing, the company's newest vehicle assembly plant inaugurated just a few months back at Rayong, Thailand. Though Ford would have preferred celebrating this landmark with a Mustang or a F150, it's head-turner and volume-churner respectively, the Focus has risen to the occasion splendidly with a huge landmark of its own. For the first six months of this year, the Ford Focus has become the best-selling car nameplate in the world, apparently beating the perennial best-seller Toyota Corolla by a handsome margin. "The Focus is a winner on so many levels because it successfully provides customers with what they want most - a safe, smart, fuel-efficient, good-looking, fun-to-drive, affordable car", said Jim Farley, Ford's group Vice-president for global marketing, sales and service.

Founded by Henry Ford in the year 1903, Ford Motor Company led the industry in its nascent stages with the phenomenally successful Model T, that paved way for affordable cars across the world. It took more than 50 years for the company to reach its first 50 Million units, while the remaining 300 Million units have been produced in the subsequent 50. Ford safely glided through the recent economic recession in 2008 even as its fellow country rivals GM and Chrysler filed for bankruptcy. Though it lost more than a few brands along the way including the iconic Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin, focusing on the core 'Ford' brand has proved to be remarkably successful for the company. The recent 'One Ford' mantra of developing and producing identical vehicles to be sold across the world has yielded huge benefits and the Focus was born out of the same philosophy.

Check out this picture below that neatly depicts the production milestones crossed by Ford in its history spanning 109 years.

While this is all well and good, for us, Ford means 'Ecosport' at the moment. Bring it on Ford, India needs a whole lot of them right now to clear the Dust(er)!