Ford Motor said Thursday it will spend $1 billion to build a new paint shop at its Kentucky Truck Plant, the facility the company has described as its most important and profitable factory anywhere in the world.
The plant builds Ford’s large F-250 through F-550 Super Duty trucks, along with the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator SUVs.
The new paint facility is expected to replace the plant’s existing paint shop and further modernize one of Ford’s central manufacturing operations, the company said in a press release. Ford plans to break ground on the project later this year. A company spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on when the new shop is expected to be finished, according to CNBC, which first reported the announcement.
An Unusual Backdrop
The timing places the investment two days after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a letter to CEO Jim Farley expressing what he called “profound concern” about Ford’s U.S. “manufacturing integrity” and its ties to Chinese companies that the Trump administration believed could hurt the Detroit automaker and the broader U.S. auto industry.
Ford rejected the characterization, calling it a “wrongheaded attempt to capture headlines.” The company regularly points to its position as the top-producing automaker in the United States.
The exchange appears to have cooled quickly. After Ford issued a lengthy response, the White House’s Rapid Response account on X published a positive statement on Wednesday, describing Ford as “a GREAT American company.”
Why Paint Shops Matter
Paint shops are among the most expensive and technically demanding parts of a vehicle assembly plant, and they sit near the start of the production chain — any disruption there ripples through the rest of the line. Replacing one at a site that turns out high-margin Super Duty trucks and large SUVs carries outsized weight for Ford’s bottom line.
Ford framed the Kentucky spending as part of a longer pattern. The company said the new paint shop follows roughly $4 billion in previously announced investments across its Kentucky facilities in recent years.
Farley’s Framing
“These investments demonstrate our confidence in Kentucky’s workforce, our commitment to American manufacturing, and our belief that the future of mobility and energy will be built right here in the United States,” Farley said in the release.
The announcement lands as automakers navigate shifting policy signals out of Washington and pressure to keep production and jobs domestic. For Ford, the Kentucky Truck Plant has long served as the clearest example of that domestic footprint — and Thursday’s commitment ties a fresh round of capital to the site the company leans on most.
Source: www.cnbc.com — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/10/ford-1-billion-investment-kentucky-plant.html
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