Oklahoma City Assembly

Oklahoma City Assembly was a General Motors automobile factory in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Construction on the 4,000,000-square-foot (370,000 m²) plant started in 1974, and it opened in 1979 to produce the X-body cars. The company spent $700,000,000 to convert the plant from building the Chevrolet Malibu car to building the GMT360 SUVs in 2001. The plant was damaged by a tornado on May 8, 2003, but the company repaired the damage and returned the plant to operations just 53 days later.

On December 6, 2005, the company alerted the United Auto Workers local 1999 that the plant would be closed in February 2006 as part of a cost-savings measure. The last vehicle produced at the plant, a white Chevrolet Trailblazer EXT, rolled out on February 20, 2006. The plant was the first of 12 facilities the company planned to close by 2008 to match production with market demand. An estimated 521,400 GMT360 trucks were built at the Oklahoma City Assembly plant.

The Oklahoma City plant employed 2,400 people — 2,200 hourly and 200 salaried — but economists estimated that as many as 7,500 jobs in the area could be affected, including those at GM suppliers and secondary jobs, like hotel and restaurant workers.

Laid-off employees had the option of retiring or enrolling in GM's Jobs Bank, which allows workers to collect full pay and benefits as they attend classes or volunteer at community agencies. Some workers would continue to be paid through September 2007, when GM's UAW contract expired.

On May 13, 2008, the voters of Oklahoma County approved the purchase of the plant, which was to be leased to neighboring Tinker Air Force Base. [1]

Products

• Buick Century
• Chevrolet Celebrity
• Chevrolet Citation
• Chevrolet Malibu
• Chevrolet TrailBlazer EXT
• Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera
• Pontiac Phoenix
• Pontiac 6000
• GMC Envoy XL
• GMC Envoy XUV (produced from 2003 through March 15, 2005)
• 2003–2006 Isuzu Ascender

Coordinates: 35°23′38.97″N 97°23′45.25″W / 35.3941583°N 97.3959028°W / 35.3941583; -97.3959028