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My brother is an HS sophomore and brought back a few books on the history of Lansing that I decided to check out while having breakfast this morning...
Lansing was definitely a GM town but also Oldsmobile's town. Until the '90s it was Oldsmobile's headquarters and had Olds' factory...my dad and many others have said you could drop out of HS, and start working there that day and you'd live good (note that some refer to "Olds" as "Fisher Body", or most recently, Lansing Car Assembly.
Anyway, I thought this was interesting in one of the Lansing books; in 1992, front page news of the Lansing State Journal was the denying of a rumor that Oldsmobile was going to be phased out. It mentioned that some felt that they overlapped too much with Buick (which I feel was true), but a spokesperson said Olds was going to stay.
Sadly that obviously didn't last too long. In my eyes, Olds' attempted turn around in the '90s didn't work for a numbers of reasons. The Aurora, Intrigue, LSS, and others just weren't enough to turn the ship around.
Both my dad and others we've met never thought they'd see "Olds" being torn down. Part of the plant bridged over Martin Luther King JR. BLVD, with its bridge over the Grand River raised abnormally high to be able to clear the plant. My dad (and one of the books) mentioned how there was a red neon sign, visible going northbound on Martin Luther King (formerly Logan) on top of the plant (err one of them...keep in mind the car bodies had to be trucked from Verlinden street plant to this one) with something along the lines of "Oldsmobile, featuring the Rocket V8". I guess this was replaced with "Lansing Car Assembly" in the '80s.
Every like few minutes you could see the blue semi trucks carrying the bodies between the two plants..."Lansing Car Assembly, the capital of quality".
The site, which has been used for auto production for over 100 years, is pretty much free of any structures and is just cement. The railroad tracks are gone. The nearby shipping/holding lots are empty and are obviously neglected.
Seems odd that a factory that old, that has to TRUCK bodies between two plants, was one of the most efficient auto factories in its last year.
The Lansing Metal Center, which stamped stuff, is being torn down.
So is the Lansing Craft Centre...formerly an axle factory (from back in the day, when GM made RWD cars
) that was turned into an auto plant and produced the Reatta, Cavalier/Sunfire convertibles, Eldorado, and SSR. I have a book that was compiled by a Reatta enthusiast that told of all the high tech equipment and changes made to the plant to be ready for Reatta production. It had a state of the art painting facility that was actually run by PPG. Reattas received 6 coats of hand sanded clear.
It sucks that these plants have been lost but then again we have the fairly new Lansing Grand River plant (so I guess now we're like the Cadillac town) and Lansing Delta Township where the Lambdas come from.
The stadium for the minor league baseball Lansing Lugnuts is, and remains, Oldsmobile park. Until a year or two ago the Oldsmobile world headquarters building still had its logo and lettering. Its to be demolished as well, however.
I'm not sure what this post was, but it's my knowledge and semi-rant of GM and Lansing
Lansing was definitely a GM town but also Oldsmobile's town. Until the '90s it was Oldsmobile's headquarters and had Olds' factory...my dad and many others have said you could drop out of HS, and start working there that day and you'd live good (note that some refer to "Olds" as "Fisher Body", or most recently, Lansing Car Assembly.
Anyway, I thought this was interesting in one of the Lansing books; in 1992, front page news of the Lansing State Journal was the denying of a rumor that Oldsmobile was going to be phased out. It mentioned that some felt that they overlapped too much with Buick (which I feel was true), but a spokesperson said Olds was going to stay.
Sadly that obviously didn't last too long. In my eyes, Olds' attempted turn around in the '90s didn't work for a numbers of reasons. The Aurora, Intrigue, LSS, and others just weren't enough to turn the ship around.
Both my dad and others we've met never thought they'd see "Olds" being torn down. Part of the plant bridged over Martin Luther King JR. BLVD, with its bridge over the Grand River raised abnormally high to be able to clear the plant. My dad (and one of the books) mentioned how there was a red neon sign, visible going northbound on Martin Luther King (formerly Logan) on top of the plant (err one of them...keep in mind the car bodies had to be trucked from Verlinden street plant to this one) with something along the lines of "Oldsmobile, featuring the Rocket V8". I guess this was replaced with "Lansing Car Assembly" in the '80s.
Every like few minutes you could see the blue semi trucks carrying the bodies between the two plants..."Lansing Car Assembly, the capital of quality".
The site, which has been used for auto production for over 100 years, is pretty much free of any structures and is just cement. The railroad tracks are gone. The nearby shipping/holding lots are empty and are obviously neglected.
Seems odd that a factory that old, that has to TRUCK bodies between two plants, was one of the most efficient auto factories in its last year.
The Lansing Metal Center, which stamped stuff, is being torn down.
So is the Lansing Craft Centre...formerly an axle factory (from back in the day, when GM made RWD cars
) that was turned into an auto plant and produced the Reatta, Cavalier/Sunfire convertibles, Eldorado, and SSR. I have a book that was compiled by a Reatta enthusiast that told of all the high tech equipment and changes made to the plant to be ready for Reatta production. It had a state of the art painting facility that was actually run by PPG. Reattas received 6 coats of hand sanded clear. It sucks that these plants have been lost but then again we have the fairly new Lansing Grand River plant (so I guess now we're like the Cadillac town) and Lansing Delta Township where the Lambdas come from.
The stadium for the minor league baseball Lansing Lugnuts is, and remains, Oldsmobile park. Until a year or two ago the Oldsmobile world headquarters building still had its logo and lettering. Its to be demolished as well, however.
I'm not sure what this post was, but it's my knowledge and semi-rant of GM and Lansing
