{"id":115800,"date":"2017-05-01T16:54:52","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T20:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=115800"},"modified":"2017-05-01T16:54:52","modified_gmt":"2017-05-01T20:54:52","slug":"gm-returns-to-its-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2017\/05\/gm-returns-to-its-roots\/","title":{"rendered":"GM Returns to its Roots"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Two of GM's founders, Billy Durant and Josiah Dort, began their carriage company in this modest Flint factory in 1886.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These days, talk about Flint, Michigan and the subject is likely to turn to urban decay or worse, the once-booming industrial center the center of a scandal that saw thousands of residents poisoned by lead-laden drinking water.<\/p>\n

But there was a time when Flint was at the center of the American industrial revolution. In fact, it was Flint, rather than Detroit, where the company that eventually became General Motors was born. And GM returned to its roots on Monday, formally unveiling the old factory where everything began.<\/p>\n

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Forward into the Past!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe vehicle history here is really incredible,\u201d said Mark Reuss, GM\u2019s global product development chief, during a ceremony at what was originally known as the Durant-Dort Factory One. It was here in 1886 that GM co-founders Billy Durant and Josiah Dort started producing a line of carts, wagons and carriages.<\/p>\n

They eventually went on to create the Chevrolet brand and pull together an assortment of different car brands and automotive suppliers that became General Motors. The partners moved out of the facility before GM founded in 1908 and never made any of that company\u2019s products in the 30,000 square-foot facility. But it is still seen as the birthplace of GM because of its role in getting Durant and Crapo\u2019s Flint Road Cart Co. off the ground.<\/p>\n

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Like a number of senior GM execs, global product chief Mark Reuss has deep ties to Flint.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(GM focusing on profitability rather than volume. <\/em>Click Here<\/a> to see how that strategy paid off in the first quarter.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong>Like the rest of Flint, Factory One was largely abandoned and fell into disrepair. A number of plans have surfaced over the years aimed at restoring the historic building, but there wasn\u2019t much going on when Reuss visited the facility four years ago. After being told of its historic importance, \u201cI said, \u2018you\u2019ve got to be kidding me.\u2019\u201d GM acquired the facility and \u201cwe went to work pretty quick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reuss has some long-term ties to both GM and Flint. His father, Lloyd, ran the now-gone Buick City complex only a few miles from Factory One back in the 1980s, going on to become GM\u2019s president.<\/p>\n

But the Monday morning dedication also drew various members of the Durant and Dort families. The two men had a falling out in 1915 and, according to one of Monday\u2019s speakers, it was the first time members of the two families have come together since a 1925 funeral.<\/p>\n

Like Reuss, a number of other senior GM executives have ties to Flint, including Mary Barra, who attended what is known as Kettering University but which used to be called the General Motors Institute.<\/p>\n

GM turned to Flint to celebrate its 50th<\/sup> anniversary in 1958, but the maker largely walked away from the city between the 1980s and 2010, when it went through bankruptcy. That served as the subject of \u201cRoger and Me,\u201d the breakout film by gadfly filmmaker Michael Moore.<\/p>\n

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Daniel "Duke" Durant Merrick great-grandson of William C. "Billy" Durant (left) and Dallas Dort - grandson of Josiah Dallas Dort, stand with statues of their ancestors at the opening of the newly restored factory.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(Old GM plant and part of “Arsenal of Democracy,” finds new life as autonomous vehicle testing center. <\/em>Click Here<\/span><\/a> for more.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong>Things continued to get worse, an emergency manager appointed to run the city deciding to save money by drawing drinking water from the Flint River. It turned out to be so corrosive that it started leaching lead from pipes \u2013 some as old as the old Durant-Dort plant itself. Thousands of local residents, many of them children, have been poisoned by the heavy metal.<\/p>\n

In recent years, efforts have been made to help rebuild Flint. GM itself has stepped up its involvement in the city \u2013 with local investments of about $2.8 billion over the last eight years — and now employs about 7,200 workers in and around the city.<\/p>\n

As for Factory One, it will be used for corporate and community events, as well as educational projects. Among other things, it will house the Kettering University free automotive research library, with an estimated 100,000 photos, documents and artifacts from the early days of the auto industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cFactory One is once again an asset to this community and will be for generations to come,\u201d said Kevin Kirbitz, a GM engineer who will now serve as the center\u2019s operations manager.<\/p>\n

(GM CEO Barra says she has no plans to go work for Trump Admin. <\/em>Click Here<\/span><\/a> for the latest.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These days, talk about Flint, Michigan and the subject is likely to turn to urban decay and lead-poisoned water. But Flint was once the heart of America’s transportation revolution and serves as the ancestral home of General Motors. And GM on Monday formally rededicated the old factory where it all began. TheDetroitBureau.com takes a look at “Factory One.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115800"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115800"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=115800"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=115800"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=115800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}