A Ford C-Max Hybrid rolls off the line at the maker's Michigan Assembly Plant.

Ford Motor Company plans to roll-out 200,000 additional vehicles this year to meet customer demand in the U.S.  where the market is continuing to gain momentum after the worst industry downturn in decades.

The maker expects to pick up a large chunk of that added volume by trimming back its normal two-week summer shutdown at select plants. That alone should add another 40,000 units of volume, Ford said.

At the same time, the second-largest Detroit maker has decided to shutter the company’s manufacturing operations in Australia. The maker has been losing money “down under” for years and follows a number of other automakers who have decided to cease production there.

“To meet surging customer demand for our top-selling cars, utilities and trucks, we are continuing to run our North American facilities at full manned capacity, and we will add 200,000 units of annual straight-time capacity this year,” said Jim Tetreault, vice president of North America Manufacturing.

(Detroit’s Big Three all planning to trim summer break to boost production. Click Here for the story.)

The Ford executive also noted that, “Approximately 75% of our plants are running at a three-crew, three-shift or four-crew pattern in order to ensure we’re getting more of our products into dealerships.”

The increase in capacity this year will come at a handful of key factories including Ford’s Chicago Assembly Plant, Flat Rock (Michigan) Assembly Plant and Kansas City Assembly Plant, and will focus on  of some of the maker’s best-selling vehicles including Ford Explorer, Ford Fusion and Ford F-Series.

A total of 20 Ford plants, including six assembly lines, will take a reduced summer shutdown this year. That includes Chicago Assembly, Kentucky Truck, Michigan Assembly and Oakville Assembly, as well as two facilities in Mexico: Cuautitlán Assembly, Hermosillo Stamping and Assembly.

(May car sales expected to again surge. Click Here for the story.)

To meet demand, the company is adding 3,500 new hourly jobs in 2013 — including more than 2,000 at the Kansas City Assembly Plant, as well as more than 1,400 at the Flat Rock Assembly Plant.

Ford is now three-quarters of the way through its plan to create 12,000 hourly jobs in the United States by 2015. The company hired more than 8,000 salaried and hourly employees in the U.S. last year.

But it will be eliminating about 1,200 jobs in Australia, where it is preparing to shut down production operations that opened in 1916 when Henry Ford decided to build the Model T “down under.”

The surge in the value of the Australian dollar has undermined Ford’s ability to produce cars competitively there. And it’s not alone. Only a handful of makers remain in the market, and GM last month announced plans to eliminate 500 jobs at its Holden division there. Like most of its competitors, Ford will now rely on imports to stock Australian dealers.

“We understand the very real impact that this will have on our team,” Ford Australia President Bob Graziano told reporters. “We came to this conclusion only after thoroughly reviewing our business and exhausting all other alternatives.”

Ford Australia estimates production costs are double those in Europe and four times those of its Asian divisions.