The Last Car Built at Fremont Assembly

I came of driving age in the East Bay, home of Jack London, Gertrude Stein, Philip K. Dick, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Too $hort and Green Day, just up the Nimitz Freeway from GM's Fremont Assembly factory.

Fremont Assembly closed down in early March of 1982, when the final Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera rolled off the line, after 29 years and 4,282,215 cars and trucks. Two years later, the plant became NUMMI, which assembled vehicles through 2010, and since then it has been the Tesla Factory.

When writing about one of the final NUMMI-built vehicles (a 2010 Pontiac Vibe), my research took me to an eBay auction for a GM press photo of the very last car built at Fremont Assembly, and I felt compelled to purchase it. Here it is, complete with shoprat wearing a Joe Montana 49ers jersey a couple of months after Super Bowl XVI (because the Oakland Raiders had abandoned the East Bay for Los Angeles—the first time— the year before).