Sad Day in Delaware: GM Closes Boxwood Road Plant

Tough day for workers at General Motors' Boxwood Road assembly plant who today "celebrated" their last day at work. Unfortunately, this was also the last day for the facility per se as the American manufacturer will shut down production lines, together with the two models assembled here, Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky roadster.

To refresh your memory, the 62-year old production plant is one of the 14 factories sentenced to either a temporary or permanent halt as part of General Motors' restructuring in the United States. As part of this revival process, GM will get rid of both Pontiac and Saturn brands, with the first to be discontinued and the latter to be sold to Penske Group.

But getting back to the Boxwood Road plant, its workers today produced the last Solstice and set up an ad-hoc celebration for their last day at work. James Graves, a 29-year employee, told delawareonline.com that GM's decision wasn't so shocking given the fact that everybody heard the company will get rid of the two brands. But even so, the short timeframe to do it was still surprising.

“It was so quick, you know?” Graves said. “That’s what hurt everybody.”

Just as said, this is a sad day for all workers at the plant. Generation after generation of Delaware citizens worked at the plant so seeing the factory going down the drain is quite a depressing thing. Graves for example invited his 93-year old father at the plant to see a car rolling off the assembly lines for the last time... At least for the Boxwood facility...