Geelong's decades-long link with car making will not be entirely severed when Ford stops manufacturing in the city next year.

Local company Carbon Revolution has been chosen by Ford USA to supply carbon fibre wheels to the new Shelby Mustang GT350R vehicle.

The one-piece wheels promise improvements to performance and handling, along with massive weight savings of more than 40 per cent compared to alloy rims, according to company chief executive Jake Dingle.

"Anything that can save that much weight in such a critical part of the vehicle is going to get a lot of attention - it has been a very difficult thing to do," Mr Dingle said.

"We've been the first to be able to do this."

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The company has previously produced after-market wheels for luxury vehicles but the Ford deal is the first time a car maker has included the track-capable carbon fibre wheels as standard equipment on a mass-produced vehicle.

Federal Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane hailed the announcement as a "great day" for Australian advanced manufacturing.

"This is a significant achievement and demonstrates that Australia is continuing to play a very important role in supplying the global auto market," Mr Macfarlane said.

Motoring journalist Will Hagon said the new manufacturing work of companies like Carbon Revolution went some way toward filling a void left by the withdrawal of the major car makers and the massive job losses expected.

"You have to dry your eyes, because there are good people who have done tremendous work and it's just sad," he told ABC Radio.

"It's a way of life, things change but it doesn't make it any easier to bear.

"Perhaps we'll see more of these things springing up, hopefully."

Geelong moving away from old technologies

That transition is evident in Geelong, where the few big companies such as Ford and Alcoa are closing and a growing number of smaller companies are carving out their own niches.

The days of more than 1,000 people working for one major employer are a distant memory for the manufacturing city.

Carbon Revolution was a recipient of the investment and innovation fund set up in the aftermath of Ford and Alcoa's Geelong exit, promising to add more than 100 jobs as it cranked up production.

The company is adding a few new jobs every week but the workforce is expected to top out at 300 as production heads towards 250,000 wheels per year.

"There's a transition from the older technology and the older industries to newer technology and newer industries," the Geelong Manufacturing Council's Mike Williams said.

"Even though the new companies may be smaller than the traditional employers in Geelong, there's many more of them and they are producing products that are truly for a global market."

Component makers, who are expected to be hit by the looming closures of Ford, Toyota and Holden's Australian manufacturing operations, have been told to innovate and diversify or follow the big car makers out of business.

"The mindset definitely is changing in Geelong, we are seeing pockets of people who really do get it - people who realise that the future is with advanced manufacturing," Mr Williams said.

Carbon Revolution's wheel technology could also be adopted to the aerospace industry, with specialised wheels potentially manufactured in Geelong.

"This technology has a very obvious place in the aerospace industry and that's been confirmed by a lot of international aerospace companies so that could potentially create a whole separate division of this business which will create more jobs again," Mr Dingle said.