Ford revs up large SUV production to boost margins, challenge GM

Louisville, Kentucky

FORD Motor Co said on Monday that it will boost production targets for two large sport utility vehicles by 25 per cent this year to challenge rival General Motors Co's hegemony in a highly profitable US market segment and boost its own anaemic profit margins.

"We can sell every single vehicle we can produce here," Ford global operations president Joe Hinrichs said ahead of the announcement during a tour of the company's Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, Kentucky, where the new generation of Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator SUVs went into production last fall.