Michigan is the hotspot of the U.S. auto industry, so it comes as no surprise that General Motors also traces its roots to the Great Lakes State. In an effort to pay tribute to its homestead, General Motors recently restored the Durant-Dort Factory One.
Located on the Flint Reaver near downtown Flint, the pictured complex dates back to the 1880s. Starting life as a short-lived cotton mill, the factory changed owners in 1886, when Durant and Dort bought it. The facility was adapted to build horse-drawn carriages, and the rest, as they say, is history.
As fate would have it, William Durant’s rapid expansion in the 1910s saw General Motors’ founding father ousted from the Durant-Dort Carriage Company, leaving Josiah Dallas Dort to his own devices. The latter subsequently changed the nature of his company by the mid-1910s.
It didn’t take long for the Dort’s business took a nosedive, and by 1924, the company went bust. The building, however, stood the test of time, and General Motors identified an opportunity in 2013, when the U.S.’ biggest automaker purchased it. Approximately four years since, all the windows and doors were replaced with period-accurate units, the roof was carefully reconditioned, and the contractor replaced just about 17,000 bricks.
The final phase of the restoration included all-new heating and cooling systems, plumbing, and the obligatory fire-suppression equipment. As the photographs in the adjacent gallery reveal, as does the following video, the investment was definitely worth it considering that the Flint-based factory has a great deal of historical significance to it. After all, it's ground zero for GM.
“Factory One sparked the global auto industry and was a catalyst in the formation of General Motors,” commented Mark Reuss, General Motors’ executive vice president of Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain. “It preserves the stories of the early visionaries who built a brand-new industry in this city, within the very walls of where it happened.”
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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