Firebird III concept car is a beautifully engineered car from General Motors' 100-year history.
GM Heritage Center shows why company has lasted 100 years
By Jenny King / Special to The Detroit News
Beautifully styled and carefully engineered cars and trucks from 100 years of manufacturing stand in neat lines or clusters. Neon automobilia signs are the dramatic backdrop.
A popular gathering site for General Motors functions and now available for scheduled group visits, the displays at the four-year-old Heritage Center are anything but static.
"We organize 3,500 shipments of vehicles a year," said Dick Balsley, a GM engineer with the busy collection. "Some vehicles are going out several times," he added.
Balsley said the collection attempts to meet the needs of car clubs, auto shows, special events, ad agencies, dealer meetings and museums.
"We used to insist that requests be made at least a month in advance, but it hasn't always worked that way," Balsley said, recalling a plea on a Friday to get a vehicle to San Diego by the following Monday. The solution was a two-person team with a transport driving straight through from Sterling Heights to the West Coast.
A trouble-free trip to San Diego is a 44-hour ordeal, he said. A truck with 600- or 700-gallon fuel tank may only need to stop once for gas, he added.
The first Chevolet Vega was built in 1971.
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The collection's Greg Wallace said Heritage Center may host up to 300 events a year.
"Twenty thousand people come through here in a typical year," said Wallace, who years ago pulled together a wonderful collection of Cadillacs on Clark Street, the Detroit site where Cadillacs were assembled for some 80 years.
Vehicles in the 81,000-square-foot display area this summer include an interesting family of alternative-power cars and trucks. A bright-red EV1 was accompanied by the 160KW GM Electrovan from 1966 (liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen), an Electrovair based on the Corvair, and the HydroGen3.
If it's not out on loan, you can see the first Chevrolet Vega to come off the line on June 26, 1970, at Lordstown, Ohio. There's also the last Saturn Ion and the last of the most recent generation of Pontiac Bonnevilles.
Don't forget to wish GM happy anniversary. It turns 100 this year.
A 1938 General Motors truck.
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