From the bottom of this Buckeye’s heart.

😥

I wish it was better quality, but it's the first time I've been by there since the last new car was moved out, and I wanted to get a shot of the empty yards.

The trip I just completed takes me by no fewer than 5 large assembly plants and within spitting distance of another 4 or 5, several in Ohio alone.

I’ve driven this way many times.

Seeing it look this way is just heartbreaking.

Been by it more time than I can count, myself. Hauled cars out of there a time or two as well.

The fact is, the big 3 have pretty much given up on building passenger cars in the continental US. They have given that business over to the foreign makes who have plants here, from M-B, BMW and VW, to Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Subaru, Kia and the rest.

It won't be long before the only passenger cars the "American" auto makers build here will be Corvettes and Mustangs.

And don't be surprised if we see the folding of the Buick marquee fairly soon. It's going to go the way of Olds and Pontiac.

Really sad

Thanks for this from a born and raised Buckeye who left in the 80's.

It was opened in 1914 to build Model Ts. Before it was closed, it was making Ford Ranger pickups. In fact, the 1996 Ranger I own was built in that plant.

Ford stopped making the Ranger a few years ago, but has now re-introduced it to the market again. However, the plant in St. Paul is gone. It has been demolished. Only the hydroelectic power plant on the site is still there. Once, there was a silica sand mine on the site, as well, along with a glass-making factory. Those are gone now, too.

The site will be redeveloped soon. It will be home to apartment buildings and other structures, along with open space and recreational facilities. But, it will no longer be a place where St. Paul residents go to work everyday to build Fords.

Here in St. Paul, if you're looking for a used small pickup truck, you'll have a very hard time finding anything but Ford Rangers. They're everywhere. St. Paulites bought them almost as fast as the factory could make them. It's interesting to see how loyal people here were to their local auto plant.

That plant is a vacant lot now.

There are numerous plants around the country that have been closed for years now. Both GM and Ford had plants in Atlanta for example, with General Motors operating two (Doraville and Lakewood Heights), all of which have been demolished.

The list of closed GM plants is longer than the list of currently operating ones;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_General_Motors_factories

Factories do become obsolete for sure. Often, new auto manufacturing technology simply won't work in some old factory buildings. When Ford stopped building the Ranger, they shut the St. Paul plant down. It probably would have been uneconomical to reconfigure it for a different model, I suppose. It was an old-fashioned factory design. Remodeling it for a new line, probably would have cost more than building a new plant designed for that new assembly line. I don't know, but that plant is a huge vacant lot now, about to become a new neighborhood in St. Paul. Other old factory complexes here are also being torn down. What will replace them? I don't know.

in general, than it did directly with Trump.

As I mentioned above, the "Big 3" have almost completely given up on building passenger cars in the US. They still build them overseas, but often those plants are operated or partly owned by other car makers. For the most part, the automobiles built in North America by Ford, GM and Chrysler are more and more only pickups, "crossovers" and SUV's. They more or less can build a large pickup and have it roll off the line with $5000 profit to the plant already in the price.

They just weren't able to keep up with the likes of the Honda's, Toyota's and Nissan's of the world when it came to making passenger cars profitably.

They are leaving the car building to the other, global makers.

at the size and activity that was always happening.
sad to see it like this

I had heard it was the largest automobile assembly complex in the world for a time.

Googling that question now does not give that answer, but it was my understanding that Lordstown held that distinction back in the 90's