LOUISVILLE, KY – Ford Motor Co. has proposed making a $105 million investment to upgrade its Kentucky Truck Plant, according to the Web site www.bizjournal.com. Ford announced its potential project at Kentucky Truck Plant during a Jun. 28 meeting of the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority (KEDFA) in Frankfort, Ky.

The KEDFA board granted the Dearborn, Mich.-based automaker preliminary approval for a total package of state tax incentives worth up to $66.3 million for up to 10 years. Ford’s plans, filed with the state, call for a $75 million investment in new equipment and a $30 million investment in engineering costs at the Kentucky Truck Plant. The moves would increase the factory’s flexibility and efficiency. The proposal also called for Ford to make “significant changes in the assembly process that may be integrated into the facility in subsequent investments.” Receiving the investments is based upon Ford maintaining specified employment thresholds at the Kentucky Truck Plant.

Ford’s director of public affairs for production declined to say whether the new tooling at Kentucky Truck Plant would be used to build a new product or a new model year of an existing product, according to twww.bizjournal.com. The investment is part of Ford’s “overall plan to turn around the business” under its “Way Forward” restructuring plan. In that plan, announced last year, Ford initially called for closing 14 Ford manufacturing facilities by 2012. Last fall, two more plants were added to that list, which, to date, doesn’t include Ford’s two Louisville factories, although not all of the closing plants have been identified.