General Motors
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...
factory in
Framingham, Massachusetts
Framingham () is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Incorporated in 1700, it is located in Middlesex County and the MetroWest subregion of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The city proper covers with a popu ...
which opened in 1947.
History and models
The plant was built on the location of Framingham Airport, and ground was broken in 1945. The plant cost $12 million ($ in dollars ) and was one of three new plants that year. At one point, the Framingham Assembly plant was one of the largest automotive manufacturing plants in the United States, employing over 5,000 workers from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire.
The first vehicle, produced on 26 February 1948, was a
Buick
Buick () is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM). Started by automotive pioneer David Dunbar Buick in 1899, it was among the first American marques of automobiles, and was the company that established General ...
, with 23,388 more produced that first year. The factory was used by "BOP" (Buick,
Oldsmobile
Oldsmobile or formally the Oldsmobile Division of General Motors was a brand of American automobiles, produced for most of its existence by General Motors. Originally established as "Olds Motor Vehicle Company" by Ransom E. Olds in 1897, it produ ...
,
Pontiac Pontiac may refer to:
*Pontiac (automobile), a car brand
*Pontiac (Ottawa leader) ( – 1769), a Native American war chief
Places and jurisdictions Canada
*Pontiac, Quebec, a municipality
** Apostolic Vicariate of Pontiac, now the Roman Catholic D ...
) and was under the management of GM's newly created Buick-Oldsmobile-Pontiac Assembly Division created in 1945. The factory had produced 697,574 cars by 1959. In August of that year, it became part of
Fisher Body
Fisher Body was an automobile coachbuilder founded by the Fisher brothers in 1908 in Detroit, Michigan. A division of General Motors for many years, in 1984 it was dissolved to form other General Motors divisions. Fisher & Company (originally Allo ...
, producing
Chevrolet
Chevrolet ( ), colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941) and ous ...
, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile cars.
The factory was re-purposed again in May, 1968, changing from separate Fisher Body and Chevrolet Division operations to a combined operation under the new GM Assembly Division, to produce the
Chevrolet Chevelle
The Chevrolet Chevelle is a mid-sized automobile that was produced by Chevrolet in three generations for the 1964 through 1978 model years. Part of the General Motors (GM) A-body platform, the Chevelle was one of Chevrolet's most successful ...
and
Pontiac Le Mans
The Pontiac LeMans is a model name that was applied to subcompact car, subcompact- and mid-size car, intermediate-sized automobiles marketed by Pontiac (automobile), Pontiac from 1961 to 1981 (1983 in Canada) model years. Originally a trim upgr ...
. The
Pontiac GTO
The Pontiac GTO is an automobile that was manufactured by American automaker Pontiac from 1963 to 1974 for the 1964 to 1974 model years, and by GM's subsidiary Holden in Australia for the 2004 to 2006 model years.
The first generation of the G ...
was added in 1969. The
Buick Skylark
The Buick Skylark is a passenger car formerly produced by Buick. The model was made in six production runs, during 46 years, over which the car's design varied dramatically due to changing technology, tastes, and new standards implemented over ...
and
Oldsmobile Cutlass
The Oldsmobile Cutlass was a series of automobiles produced by General Motors' Oldsmobile division between 1961 and 1999. At its introduction, the Cutlass was Oldsmobile's entry-level model; it began as a unibody compact car, but saw its greates ...
were added in 1970. In 1981, the
Chevrolet Celebrity
The Chevrolet Celebrity is a mid-size automobile that was produced by the Chevrolet division of General Motors from the 1982 to 1990 model years. Replacing the Malibu, the Celebrity was initially slotted between the Citation and the Impala w ...
and
Pontiac 6000
The Pontiac 6000 is a Mid-size automobile manufactured and marketed by Pontiac for model years 1982-1991 in 2-door coupe, 4-door sedan and 5-door wagon body styles – as one of four rebadged variants, including the Buick Century, Chevrolet Celebri ...
were produced, with the
Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera
The Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera is a mid-size car that was manufactured and marketed from the 1982 through 1996 model years by the Oldsmobile Division of General Motors. It shared the front-wheel drive A platform with the Buick Century, Pontiac 60 ...
added for the 1983 model year.
Closure
The Framingham location was the center of several contentious tug-of-wars between Governor
Michael Dukakis
Michael Stanley Dukakis (; born November 3, 1933) is an American retired lawyer and politician who served as governor of Massachusetts from 1975 to 1979 and again from 1983 to 1991. He is the longest-serving governor in Massachusetts history a ...
and local politician Anthony M. Colonna. After the town refused to sell General Motors a , town-owned piece of property GM desired for the construction of a new paint and plastics facility, Dukakis used the state's power of
eminent domain
Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...
to take the property from the town and sell it to GM so the company could construct the $224 million facility ($ in dollars ). Colona, head of the town department public works and a powerful local politician, had desired a new, unified DPW facility to be constructed on the site. After the taking, state officials and executives at GM claimed that Colonna used his political influence in the community to delay the company's expansion of the facility and drum up support against the company.
When the facility was closed, GM stated that it was due primarily to a slowdown in the economy as well as the relatively small size of the facility. However, GM spokesperson Mark Leddy stated that local officials in Framingham were also partially to blame, declaring "You look at your labor climate, your relationship with the community and the quality of product being built at the plant" when explaining why the company chose to shutter the unit.
The plant was idled on October 4, 1982, with a single shift recalled on March 14, 1983. The second shift started again on December 12, 1983. The factory was closed permanently on August 1, 1989.
Current use
The facility is now the location of an ADESA automobile, truck, and boat warehouse and live auction site. The company claims that the facility is the largest indoor auction house in the world, capable of housing 10,000 autos and 4,000 people.
Framingham Assembly was located just South of downtown Framingham at Loring Drive and Western Avenue. The address of the ADESA auction site is 63 Western Ave.
A small landfill formerly used by General Motors at the site still exists and is part of the "Old GM", the leftover portions of the company after the 2009 bankruptcy. The administrative trust overseeing the former corporate assets has the property up for sale as of June 2012, but does not expect a buyer due to the nature of the facility.