Between now and 2011, Ford Motor Company will invest $1.02 billion in its Brazilian operations (on top of the previously announced $139 million the company plans to spend on product development and capacity expansion at its Sao Paulo state plant). Ford announced the investment Thursday, along with the confirmation that it will buy the Brazilian off-road vehicle maker Troller for an undisclosed amount. Brazil is the world's most advanced ethanol market.

The last time we mentioned Troller on AutoblogGreen, a reader commented that perhaps Ford wanted to buy Troller so they could stop Troller`s production and the restart and sell the Land Rover Defender to the Brazilian army. Anyone heard anything about this?

Ford's flexible-fuel Fiesta has been selling well in Brazil, where even the "normal" gasoline is made up of 25 percent ethanol.

Related:

• Ford working to buy Brazilian automaker Troller
• Ford recalls over 100,000 flex-fuel vehicles in Brazil
• U.S. sales figures to the contrary, Ford can sell lots of small, efficient cars

[Source: AutoNews – subs req'd]

Man, I wish I spoke Portuguese. There's news out recently that Ford Brazil is looking to buy Brazilian automaker Troller Veiculos Especiais SA, which makes two models of off road vehicles, the Jeep-like T4 and the Pantanal truck. Hearing this, and knowing Brazil's ethanol-happy auto market, I thought I'd try and see if this buyout might be an under-the-radar way for Ford to boost its E85 plans in America. No such luck.

Because the Troller site is all in Portuguese, I turned to Google Translate to help out, and I discovered that Troller makes only diesel vehicles, so no help there with E85. But perhaps Ford is interested in Troller's drive-by-wire technology, which can be found in Troller's 2007 T4.

Troller is a nine-year-old company with a production capacity of about 400 vehicles a month. The acquisition should be finished soon, the O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper reported Thursday.

[Source: Dow Jones Newswires / Rogerio Jelmayer via Autoblog]