By Paul Rachwal
Thursday, Jun 14th, 2012 @ 2:54 pm
 
The 2013 Ford Escape is now rolling off the assembly line in Louisville, Kentucky. To make this possible, Ford added 1,800 jobs there recently, with 1,300 more coming by the fall of this year for a third shift.

The hourly workers at the plant will grow to a total of 4,200 before the end of the year, making for the majority of the promised 7,000 new jobs in North America Ford promised back in 2011.

The plant was converted to build unibody vehicles rather than body-on-frame trucks and SUVs thanks to a $600 million investment. It's also Ford's most flexible U.S. plant, capable of assembling up to six different models at the same time thanks to robots that can be reprogrammed as needed.

The new Escape will get a choice of three four-cylinder gas engines for North America, including the base 2.5-liter, 1.6-liter EcoBoost and 2.0-liter EcoBoost.
  

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