Yahoo Autos Let's Check In On Some Of Our Favorite Abandoned Automotive Industrial Sites
I never thought I’d see the day when the abandoned Michigan Central Station would glow with life again, but here we are. It opened back up to the public just last month thanks to the efforts of Ford Motor Company CEO William Clay Ford Jr. There isn’t just light in the windows, but real glass as Ford attempts to turn it into a “...high-tech mobility hub.”
Ford vowed to revitalize the train station in part because of the way the press used the derelict building as a symbol of the city’s fall from greatness. Now that the train station is back in biz, it got me thinking about all the other abandoned buildings and factories left by the auto industry across the world and right here in Michigan. They made for some great ruin porn back in the day, but what ever happened to all those creepy, empty buildings?
A lot has changed for the empty automotive sites of the world (though some have stayed exactly the same) click through to get an update on where we stand in 2024.
Polo industriale Fiat di Pomigliano, Termini Imerese, Italy
Thought we’d start off with one not in Detroit (see, other places have industrial wastelands too!) This shuttered Fiat plant is in Termini Imerese on the island of Sicily has been closed for over 13 years. In 2015, the plant still had a great deal of equipment on site, including a broken down fleet of crash test vehicles.
What’s Going On There Now?
According to the most recent update from the YouTube channel Forgotten Buildings, all of the test cars are gone. The channel says the factory itself is now being trashed by miscreants, but a video from six months ago shows much of the site still in a time-capsule like state. The site itself has been secured, according Forgotten Buildings, so you can’t get in anymore. Or at least, it’s pretty hard.
Alfa Romeo Portello - Milano, Italy
Sticking with Italy, we now go to fabulous Milano. Fiat left its very first factory to rot back in 1986 after nearly 80 years in operation, where everything from the 1910 24 horsepower to the Giulia (at least until 1962) was built. It sat abandoned for years as the property of the city. When parts were finally demolished to make room for residential blocks in 2004, wrecking crews found still-usable machinery inside.
What’s Going On There Now?
The last bits of the old factory are gone and now the grounds serve as a really charming public park. The park still has the Alfa Romeo sign across the entrance gates and the park is simply called the Parco Indutria Alfa Romeo Portello.
Packard Plant - Detroit, Michigan
At this point, the Packard is something of a local celebrity here in Detroit. It’s definitely up there in recognition with Michigan Central Station. Once the largest factory on Earth, it was then in the running for the largest abandoned factory on Earth. The Packard plant was designed by Albert Khan, a renown architect of the city and stretched 3.5 million square feet across 40 acres. Packard shuttered the plant 68 years ago when the brand closed down. The empty factory has been bought and sold by a variety of hucksters before invariably falling into the city’s hands when taxes were not forthcoming.
What’s Going On There Now?
There were all sorts of ideas for the Packard peddled by the various shysters who bought the derelict facility. After more than 50 years mostly abandoned, the blight on Detroit’s east side is finally coming down. The entire 40-acre site will be gone by the end of the year. Instead of empty buildings, Detroit’s east side will have an empty hole, but hopefully, not for long. Mayor Mike Duggan told reporters back in May that the city hopes a new Automotive plant could move on to the site, the Detroit News reports. All told, the wrecking of the site will cost $26 million. The city used federal funds to remove the blight, as the site’s absent owner—Peruvian developer Fernando Palazuelo—failed to secure the site or keep up with taxes.
Fisher Body Plant - Detroit, Michigan
Less well know, but still a huge blight on the city, is the old Fisher Body Plant 21. Opened in 1919 by Fred Fisher, the man known for building one of the first closed-body coupes, the 1905 Cadillac Osceola, and his brothers. The Fisher boys came up with new, tougher car body designs build to withstand America’s early rough roads.
Fisher Body worked closely with brands that would eventually become General Motors, as well as forgotten car companies like Abbot and Elmore. Fisher Body was acquired by GM in the 1920s. The now-abandon plant was shuttered in 1984 during the General’s North American restructuring, when all of Fisher Body got the axe. The plant was bought by Cameo Color Coat and later transferred to another industrial paint business which declared bankruptcy in 1993. The plant has stood empty since then at the Northwest corner of I-75 & I-94.
What’s Going On There Now?
The site is being redeveloped! Outlier Media reports the old Fisher Body Plant will soon contain 400 apartments, some of which will be low-income housing. Outer buildings have been demolished and work has started on the main structure. I never thought I’d see the day.
AMC’s Headquarters - Detroit, Michigan
This site became the headquarters for the American Motor Corporation through a rather circuitous route, according to Historic Detroit. It was first built for the Kelvinator Corporation, famous for building some of the first commercially available refrigerators for home use. From there it gets a little weird:
In 1925, the Kelvinator Corporation produced the industry’s first self-contained electric home refrigerator, and its fortunes and manufacturing needs grew. This administration building and factory were built in 1927 and designed by the Detroit firm Smith, Hinchman & Grylls. The lead architects on the project were Amedeo Leoni and William E. Kapp.
The centerpiece of the complex was a tall office tower with a three-story factory and power plant behind hit. All in, the complex comprised 1.5 million square feet. Above the tower’s main entrance was inscribed a quote from Lord Kelvin: “I’ve thought of a better way.”
Following the January 1937 merger between Kelvinator and Nash Motors of Kenosha, Wis., the building became the home of Nash-Kelvinator. With the merged company’s merged production needs, the Plymouth Road site expanded the plant to 1.46 million square feet in 1940.
During the war effort in the early 1940s, Nash-Kelvinator assembled airplane propellers and hundreds of helicopters at the plant.
Nash-Kelvinator merged with Hudson Motors in 1954 to form the American Motors Corporation, which continued to call the Plymouth Road plant home.
And that’s how you go from refrigerators to cars! The site served as a headquarters for decades before AMC moved to nearby Southfield, Michigan in 1975. It would live on as the engineering offices for Jeep until Chrysler bought the brand and relocated to a facility in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Even then, the building wasn’t totally empty until 2009.
The property would go to private buyers, who would muck around and dump at the site until the city took control in 2018. By 2021 the mayor of Detroit promised the demolition of the site, which was completed in 2023.
What’s Going On There Now?
A new facility on the site should be coming on line, including a GM-owned warehouse for storing EV parts, according to Crain’s Detroit.
Ford’s Highland Park Plant - Detroit, Michigan
This factory is a bit of a big deal, as it’s where Ford built his world-famous, history-disrupting assembly line in 1910 and was the second plant to build the Model T (behind the Ford Piquette Plant on Woodward, which still stands and is now a museum dedicated to the Model T!)
What’s Going On There Now?
Highland Park died in bits and pieces. Model T production was moved to the Rouge River Plant in Dearborn, Michigan, though Highland Park did turn out the 15th millionth Model T. It eventually switched to producing the Model A, and then plane engines during WWII. After the war, more buildings began to be leased out and by 1975 all production at the plant had ceased. Ford did use some of the buildings for records storage as recently as 2012, according to the Detroit Historical Society.
It’s still there, rotting away. In 2020, Ford told WWJ News in Detroit that rehabbing the site was not a priority for the company. An urban explorer who dropped into the site in 2022 found it to be in a sorry state.
Fordlandia, Brazil
Fordlandia is fascinating because Ford didn’t just abandon a factory in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, it abandoned and entire town. This town was stylized to look like a Detroit suburb, with Albert Khan designed buildings. Ford had a vision of a utopia where man could be perfected by engaging in both robotic assembly work and back breaking agricultural work. It was meant to give Ford a direct source for rubber, but my dude went about it all wrong and the town was left to its own devices by the company in 1945, when the end of WWII made rubber plentiful.
What’s Going On There Now?
While there are abandon buildings, don’t call Fordlandia a ghost town; people continued to live in Fordlandia ever since the company left. Some who remain today are descendants of former workers who used some of the machining left behind to run small businesses of their own. Folks have moved into the midwest style bungalows and take care of these historically significant buildings. A report from Deseret News earlier this year found 2,000 people living in Fordlandia. However the people there are suffering under the effects of deforestation and the remoteness of their location. The water pump installed in the 1930s still services the homes, however the pipes are badly in need of repair. The shining hospital that once provided world-class healthcare for people in the area burned down in 2012. From the Deseret News:
Edilson de Araujo Branco was born in the hospital built during the Ford era. He lives in the former workers’ part of town, in one of the once-identical rows of clapboard, wooden houses. “We’re making the most of what they left,” he says from the porch of his home. Across town, where the American expats used to live, a similar sentiment reigns. The once-stately houses are occupied by Brazilians who are technically squatters. “It’s a blessing, living here,” says Altina da Costa Castro, a short woman whose graying hair is tied back in a ponytail. “The house is big … and I can have a vegetable plot and a henhouse,” she adds as she pulls clothes off the line.
