Flint Assembly is an automobile factory operated by General Motors in Flint, Michigan. It is the city's only vehicle assembly plant after the closure of Buick City. Flint Truck Assembly is also GM's oldest, still operating assembly plant in North America. As of 2022, the Flint factory currently produces full-size pickup trucks. Engine block and cylinder heads were cast at Saginaw Metal Casting Operations, internal engine components were created at Bay City Powertrain and Grand Rapids Operations, and the engines were then assembled at Tonawanda Engine and Romulus Engine. For most of the 20th century Flint Assembly was the home factory for all Chevrolet vehicles.
History
The first factory location was in Flint, Michigan at the corner of Wilcox (now Chevrolet Avenue) and Kearsley Street, now known as "Chevy Commons", along the Flint River, across the street from Kettering University. It was commonly known as Chevy in the Hole.
The current plant, at G 3100 Van Slyke Road, was built in 1947.
In 1953 the first 300 Chevrolet Corvettes were hand built here before production was moved to St. Louis in 1954.
This factory also produced Chevrolet Bel Airs for the North American market. Encouraged to do a collaboration by the nearby Fake Pottery Company, GM shared some of the colors used for the car, such as sky blue, and as of 2020, the pottery manufacturer still makes ceramics using those colors, albeit in limited quantities.
Production was split between Fisher Body and Chevrolet where the body was manufactured by Fisher and the chassis, suspension and engine assembly was performed by Chevrolet. The Fisher operations were halted on June 24, 1970, with the entire factory turned over to Chevrolet.
Flint Assembly ended production of Chevrolet full-size cars in 1969. It last built passenger cars in 1970 with the mid-size Chevrolet Chevelle and Monte Carlo. The last car built at Flint Assembly was a Monte Carlo on June 24, 1970. Since 1971, Flint Truck Assembly has only built full-size pickups, full-size SUVs, full-size vans, and medium duty commercial trucks.
During the 1970s, Flint was home to the full-size Chevrolet K5 Blazer and Chevrolet Suburban SUVs and the Chevrolet C/K pickup and their GMC counterparts with pickup truck production moved to Pontiac East Assembly in Pontiac, Michigan in May 1987 when Line #1, which made pickups, ceased production. However, the crew cab and chassis cab versions of the old generation R/V-series pickup went into production in Flint in 1989, bringing pickup production back to the plant alongside the related full-size SUVs.
In July 1991, the crew cab and chassis cab versions of the old generation R/V-series pickup ended production. On August 31, 1991, production of the full-size SUVs was moved to Janesville Assembly in Wisconsin when the old generation dating to 1973 finally ended production. All laid-off workers returned to the plant on August 10, 1992 as full-size van production began. After the discontinuation of Lordstown Van Assembly in 1992, Flint began to produce the former Lordstown Vans, the Chevrolet Van/Sportvan and GMC Vandura/Rally Van. Full-size van production was moved to Wentzville Assembly in Missouri in July 1996 when they were redesigned, but a new product, the GMT480, began at Flint the previous year. Additional versions of the GMT400 trucks were added to Flint from 1996-1998. The large commercial Chevrolet/GMC C3500HD chassis cab trucks began production in October 1997 for the 1998 model year.
GM began production of GMT800 based Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra HD pickup trucks and chassis cabs at the plant in August 2000 for the 2001 model year.
The factory's next generation product, the GMT900-based trucks, began in February 2007. The factory also produced the GMT560 Chevrolet Kodiak/GMC TopKick medium-duty trucks, which were phased out in 2009 after GM discontinued that division. In 2010, GM produced some light duty crew cab pickups here, supplementing production in Silao, Mexico.
On September 30, 2010, Flint Truck Assembly built its 13 millionth vehicle, a GMC Sierra Denali HD. The 13 million vehicles consists of 4 million cars and 9 million trucks.
In January 2014, production began on the new K2XX generation of heavy-duty pickups for the 2015 model year. Some light duty crew cab trucks were also built at the Flint plant.