End of the road for Ford's Wixom plant?

With new Lincoln production going to Atlanta and Mexico, Ford's Wixom plant - the only Lincoln car production plant for decades - has little left in its future. The Ford GT is built there, but obviously that's not a long-term source of jobs, and the Thunderbird wrapped up earlier this year. So where does that leave things? In all likelihood, the plant will soon be "temporarily" closed down; a permanent closing would need to be delayed until UAW contract negotiations in 2007. With Lincoln going towards platforms shared with other Ford product, it makes little sense to keep a seperate assembly plant, especially when it's Ford's largest plant in North America. I'd like to think that Ford could reverse its direction and launch a new Mark IX and Continental on a proper RWD chassis built at Wixom (Lincoln Mark , but that doesn't look to be the future for the brand or its longtime assembly plant.