Ford Motor Co. is expected to announce on Monday that it will close the Wixom Assembly Plant near Detroit as part of its anxiously awaited Way Forward plan — a wide-ranging effort that will close plants, lay off tens of thousands of workers and detail the automaker's strategy for the future.

The Dearborn, Mich.-based automaker has publicly refused to comment on which plants it might close, causing worries to mount in cities where Ford cars, trucks and auto parts are built.

Yesterday, two Ford officials with knowledge of the plan, who did not want to be identified, told the Free Press that it now calls for Wixom's closure. Although they said the plan has been finalized, changes are possible until Ford chairman and CEO Bill Ford makes the announcement at 10:30 a.m. Monday.

Besides Wixom, northwest of Detroit, the plants most likely to close are in St. Louis, St. Paul, Minn.; Atlanta, and Cuautitlan, Mexico. In recent days, Canadian Auto Workers president Buzz Hargrove expressed concern than a car plant in St. Thomas, Ontario, would be shut.

But no town has been more on edge than Wixom.

The community had long thought the 49-year-old plant, employing 1,567, was destined for extinction. But hope was kindled by such reports such as the one on Wednesday from Catherine Madden, an automotive production analyst at Global Insight, a research firm in Lexington, Mass., who suggested the plant would be spared.

Ford Motor has several large assembly plants and other parts facilities in Michigan. That includes Dearborn Truck and Michigan Truck in Wayne.

Michigan officials have said they are working to keep every Ford job in the state, offering several tax abatements and to further rebuild the Wixom plant's I-96 interchange. The state has declined to put a dollar figure on that aid.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Jennifer Granholm said yesterday that she is waiting to hear Ford's decision on the plant.

An announcement to close Wixom would finally put the issue to rest and allow the town and its workers to move on and prepare for a different future.

At one time, the Wixom plant, a sprawling, 4.7-million- square-foot facility, proudly made four cars under one roof. But in recent years, the plant built weak-selling products, such as the Ford Thunderbird and Lincoln Continental, that seemed to foretell troubled times.

In 2002, Ford cut jobs and production at the factory. Lately, the plant has only been running one shift to build the Ford GT sports car, and the Lincoln LS and Lincoln Town Car, mid- and full-size luxury sedans.

While most assembly plants can build about 200,000 or so vehicles a year, the Wixom plant made 72,725 cars last year, and all could be discontinued or built at other Ford factories.

Automotive-industry experts have long thought that Ford, saddled with four or five more assembly plants than it needs, should close Wixom.

But on Dec. 2, an article in the Wall Street Journal first raised public hopes that Wixom might live on, and that Ford's assembly plant in Atlanta, which builds the Ford Taurus, might be closed instead.

Ford insiders quietly dismissed the notion at the time, suggesting both could close, and even union leaders said they were skeptical that Wixom might remain open.

"It's a good rumor, but it's just that, a rumor," UAW Local 36 president Dave Berry said at the time.

Still, the hope that Wixom might be saved spread like wildfire in beaten-down metro Detroit, which had been battered with news about factory job cuts for weeks. Just a week before, nearly 60,000 job cuts had been announced in the area, including 30,000 by General Motors Corp. alone.