In the Motor City, there’s automotive history all around us, on almost every corner. We need only know where to look—and what we’re looking at. Here are a few of the many historic landmarks.
MCG captured these photos in his travels around Detroit this fall (when the weather was still nice). Location information is provided in case you want to find the landmarks for yourself, in person or using online satellite photo tools such as Google Maps.
These places of note all happen to be in the Milwaukee Junction area or along the former Michigan Central Belt Line in the city’s old central industrial district. Every year a few more of Detroit’s historic automotive landmarks disappear, but for now at least, there are plenty that still remain.
Under the direction of Carl Breer, the Amplex Division of Chrysler Coporation was established to develop experimental products for the company, starting with sintered-metal, oil-impregnated bearings—the stuff known as Oilite. Early applications for the revolutionary, permanently lubricated bearings included electric motors and spring shackles. In 1935, Chrysler built an expansive facility for Amplex on Mt. Elliott Ave. near Harper, fronted by this impressive administration building.
Chrysler sold off the pioneering Amplex division in the late 1980s, along with the rights to the Oilite name. Parts of the old complex on Mt. Elliott apparently are still in use, but the administration building currently sits abandoned and in an accelerating state of disrepair.
NOTE: The information above is incorrect. This building is the former Gemmer Mfg. headquarters, which, it turns out, is right next door to the site of the Ampex plant. Gemmer supplied steering gears to many of the Detroit automakers. Thanks to Scott Hocking, corroborated by fellow reader Elwood, for setting us straight. You will find their remarks in the comments section further down this page.
You can find this interesting historical curiosity at the Trombly St. entrance of the General Motors Hamtramck Assembly plant, the massive facility where the Chevy Volt is manufactured. Covering 362 acres, Hamtramck Assembly sprawls over the former grounds of several of the Motor City’s great original auto factories, including Dodge Main (1910-1980) and the Milwaukee St. Hupmobile plant.
When GM Hamtramck started production in 1985, it was part of a GM bureacratic entity called the Buick Oldsmobile Cadillac Group (BOC), as indicated on this sign. When GM reshuffled its organizational deck again in 1992, BOC ceased to exist. And of course, there has been no Oldsmobile division since 2004, and yet this sign remains.
This old sign sits in a vacant lot near Mt. Elliott and Conant St. off to the east of GM Hamtramck Assembly. As the brown paint peels off from age and exposure, we can see underneath it Chrysler Corporate Blue. Here was once one of several employee parking lots that ringed the old Dodge Main plant, where over 30,000 people once worked. The plant was closed down and demolished in 1980, but somehow this sign has survived.
When American Axle and Manufacturing was formed in 1994, the new company took over the former GM Central Forge aka Chevrolet Gear & Axle facility, which stretches out along St. Aubin between Holbrook and Denton Streets.
Parts of the complex date back to at least 1917, and include plants once operated by GM divisions Cadillac Aircraft, Northway, Chevrolet and Central Forge. AAM ended production at the Detroit complex in 2012, and this past summer went to work demolishing many of the buildings.
This handsome and well-preserved building was the original home of the Standard Motor Truck Co., established in 1913 by Albert Fisher. The favorite uncle of the Fisher brothers, Fred and Charles, Albert Fisher was the very successful owner of the Standard Wagon Co. of Detroit, and gave the boys their start in the wagon and body business. They leveraged that opportunity into the Fisher Body Co. and a major ownership stake in General Motors.
When Uncle Albert entered the truck manufacturing business, he had famed Detroit architect Albert Kahn design this (then) state-of-the-art plant on Bellevue St. on the Michigan Central Belt Line. While Albert and Fred Fisher were active officers in Standard Motor Truck, the company was never part of Fisher Body or GM, evidently. Today the building is the home of Letts Industries, manufacturers and machine builders.
Hupmobile’s best-known plant was the big Albert Kahn factory at Milwaukee and Mt. Elliott, but earlier the company operated from a smaller facility three miles south on the belt line. The building is on Bellevue St., just a few doors down from the old Standard Motor Truck plant. Robert C. Hupp’s smartly engineered Hupmobile Model 20 was the basis for the company’s early success (“Five cars that built the Motor City,” Nov. 17, 2013).
Fantastic scholarship, Bill, as usual. Hope to see more!
Great stuff guys, do some more, infact do a complete list of everything. I grew up in Royal Oak but my grandfather was a VP at Studebaker and my other grandfather was a Dort Motor car dealer at Michigan and 8th, wish I could find a picture of his old building. Then my dad was a liaison officer between the Bank of the Commonwealth (now CoAmerica) and many of the big auto dealers in Detroit in the 50-80’s. Would love to see some of these old buildings preserved and Detroit brought back. I think that the manufacturers and the execs need to care more and reinvest in the city, after all, we did them a favor by bailing them out!! Cheers, Gary
BOC, a Roger Smith innovation and an utter disaster. Hilarious that you found the sign. You would think GM expunged all evidence by now.
As I recall, BOC = Big Old Cars. Memory fails, but I think its counterpart was CPC (Chevrolet, Pontiac, Canada) . . . with an similarly disparaging description that involved cheap, pathetic cars.
I also recall Big Old Crap and Cheap Plastic Crap. I’m sure the variations are endless.
This is one of the best blogs on the net…..always great posts!!!
Ever thought about organizing tours around these historic locations for crazy gear heads like us?
Great idea.
I like the tour idea. I work at D/ham, & there still are a lot of interesting buildings around here.
Like the tour idea too. I grew up in Royal Oak and my grandfather was a VP at Studebaker. I have a Rockne which was built at the Piquette plant. My other grandfather had a Dort Motor car dealership at Michigan and 8th. I would love to find a picture of his old building but haven’t been able too. I really think that the manufacturers should step up and reinvest some funds to restore some of these old buildings and neighborhoods especially since we bailed them out.
When I ever get to the US I really do want to go and have a look around Detroit. Bills pics on here have made it interesting. Before that Detroit was never really on my agenda.
If you are really interested in cars and get any where NEAR Detroit you really need to do the Henry Ford museum. It’s fantastic, there is nothing like it in the world. where are you from?
I don’t see old signs as forgotten landmarks, building are landmarks, not barely significant signs.
You could have done a lot better than this. Drive around the north-east end of what is now called the New Center area and you will run across far better examples on nearly every block. It’s really not hard to find many building far significant than these. I can do tours.
See http://detroiturbex.com/content/industry/index.html
The purpose of this series at MCG is to explore interesting and important aspects of automotive history, not to spotlight the biggest ruins. This is an automotive website, not an architecture website. Thanks for your interest.
I appreciate the purpose of the series and the focus of the website. My intent is not to change either. I’m not talking about spotlighting ruins either. The site I listed does that well enough.
Automotive history and architecture are closely allied in Detroit as I’m sure you know and do reference in this article.
I’m just saying a building, not a ruin, is much more significant that a sign. There are dozens of examples in the same area.
It was never the goal of this story to show the most significant artifacts. Significant to whom and for what? Not to give away the store, but the article is not even about the artifacts themselves, really. Why was the old Dodge Main sign included?
Preservation Detroit has a Milwaukee Junction tour. Doesn’t cover everything in Bill’s posts, but MJ is a huge concentration of automotive sites.
Bill – the folks at Friend of Milwaukee Junction would really appreciate collaborating with you on documenting the history of the auto-related buildings in the district. If you’re up for it, please contact me at the email given in the registration for this post.
Hey Bill, I thought the building you’re listing as Amplex was originally the front of the Gemmer factory (steering box manufacturers), as seen written on the still-standing smokestack…
Correct. The office building in the photo was the head end of the Gemmer Manufacturing plant on Mt. Eilliot. Amplex was next door, squeezed in between Gemmer and Harper (now I-94), and was torn down in the early 1980s. Gemmer (by then part of Ross Steering, now TRW) was closed in 1961, and the machinery and products moved to a new plant in TN.
Thanks for the correction, gentlemen. The info came from a trustworthy source, but further research indicates you are correct. A note will be made in the text above with the proper credit.
Re: Chevrolet Gear & Axle. Some time before August of 1946, the Spring and Bumper plant was added to G&A. On the 6th of that month my future father entered Chevrolet employment. S&B and G&A got along like MSU and UofM. Sometime around ’55-’57 they built and opened the plant in Livonia (I know they made the ’57 Chevy bumper there). Dad was hoping to get 50 years in but they closed the plant in ’93. In the late 90s they tore that down too.
He used to comment about G&A that they could still see evidence of where line shafts to power the lathes and shapers were, and was both amused and frustrated that G&A lasted longer than ‘the largest plating factory in the world’.
The employees of CPC Livonia decided CPC stood for “Chevrolet Prison Corps”