im going to van nuys and am wondering is the plant that built my car 89 rs still there? i would love to get pics of it.

 

I heard GM sold it to Honda, and they are making VTEC Civics there

Just kidd'n guys.

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'86 Camaro Sport Coupe

 

I think the building is still there, but don't know if anyone bought it. BTW the address is 8000 Van Nuys Blvd. Let us know what you find out.

 

I could probably find out if someone doesnt know for sure.

My guess is its still there and owned by GM, but empty. Thats the last I heard.

 

To my understanding, gang..... the plant was demolished a few years ago and now a shopping mall resides on the site. *sniff, sniff*

I was told that there is no sign or evidence of the thousands of F-Bodies that rolled off those assembly lines left. Now bear in mind that I haven't personally been to the site, but this is what I've been told by others.

I'd like to know for sure too.......

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Frankie Rider, 2
The GTA Source Page
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'88 GTA Red Hatchback - 5.7L/A4
'88 GTA Black Notchback - 5.7L/A4
'88 GTA Gunmetal Hatchback - 5.0L/A4

 

It's a big, really really big shopping center. Has movie theaters, restaurants, shopping, etc. It is called "The Plant" and there is absolutely no trace of GM's old factory there.

 

Yep, been there, and Tom is right. Its a big shopping mall now.

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1991 Camaro Z28
5.7L 5-Speed (originally 305)
13.23 @ 107.62 MPH
Southern California
Member: SoCal 3rd Gen F-Bodies
Webmaster: SoCal F-Bodies
-=ICON Motorsports=-

 

well that just about answers it then. i will be staying away from that part of van nuys..how depressing.

 

That's where my baby was born! They did an excellent job, except for the paint . . .

 

Gm isn't in the habit of paying taxes on empty buildings,When they closed the Scarborough Ontario Van Plant in the early part of the 90's, the wrecking crews soon followed. Wasn't the Van Nuys plant fairly new? Thats why they closed Norwood right, because Van Nuys was the newest of the 2? They leveled everything in Flint as well didn't they? How many factories has the General leveled in the last 20 years?

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1990 Iroc convertible,305 tpi,Black with black leather interior,lowered,Taylor 8mm wires,K&N's

 

I wish they were still made in norwood, that's so close to my house. I would love to go check it out if they were still made there. Where are they made now?

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91 rs, convertible, K&N, Edelbrock open element cleaner, 3.73, B&M mega-shifter, goodmark cowl-induction hood,tinted windows,MacEwen Overlays
Coming soon......"Custom" non-red material.

 

GM's knockin' em down as fast as the union and the gummit will let them.

Norwood was almost a eighty years old when the first thirdgen rolled off the line. There was a great story by Charles Fox in an '83 issue of Car and Driver about his car and the plant.

It was old, rambling and sort of patched together, making it harder and more expensive to build an already complex & costly car.

Van Nuys lived longer because the CARB made them install more modern body shop equipment sooner.

However, the UAW local in the plant was late coming to the party, with very vocal opponents to a more modern relationship between labor and management. GM cut a better deal in St. Therese, and that was that.

Pontiac is knocking down as much of the old home plant as they can. The foundry, engine plant, and final assembly facility are history, and more keep falling. About the only thing left will be the Admin building (now Delphi hq).

Flint's covered with closed down facilities, too, including Buick City, and some of the old Chevy Engine plant.

Oh well,

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Bob
'87 Formula TPI 5-speed

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ragtop Man:


There was a great story by Charles Fox in an '83 issue of Car and Driver about his car and the plant.


Is this the one titled "Present at the Creation" June 1983 C&D. If so this is what introduced me to Norwood. Great article!!!

 

You can also thank the US Government for many GM/Ford/Chrysler plants closing down. The US Governments give huge tax breaks and subsidies for foreign companies, then taxes the hell out of American companies. Thats why Hondas, Toyotas, etc are made in the USA, while many American cars are made in Canada or Mexico.

 

Quebec isnt realy part of Canada..[any Canadian knows that].

 

soulbinder, LMAO! That's also where mine was built and she still sports the original paint. That was when EPA kicked in and put all the regulations on paint VOC's. Damn hard to keep her looking pretty, can't wait until I can get her painted, probably Viper Red, staying with the similar paint code.

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Stephanie
CRCC

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'85 IROC Z28 305/LB9 TPI Pre-Peanut Cam
www.http://irocnroll.com/ccpics/stephsig.jpg

Minor Mods: New 305 HO Crate Motor
Edelbrock Cat Back Performance Exhaust System,
K&N, Grant GT Steering Wheel
Next Mods: Hypertech Prom Chip, Paint

Fairest Maiden of The Cascade Crew!

 

There is still a fairly large building at that site. A big sign sits near the street that reads "GM Powertrain". I have no clue what it is but it could be a parts wherehouse......

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-Dan
-1990 3.1L RS
-Mods? no
-Slow? yes

 

To update this thread as of November 18, 2006, there is still a building or two left standing of the old Van Nuys Assembly Plant.. It was used for some time for storage of new cars and trucks by the Rydell Automotive Group...the outside lot around the building... know this because I worked for the company for a year as a salesman... there is also a small portion of the 'test track' still on the one side of the building..
I was out there the end of October and Rydell has moved out all the cars as there is construction that has been ongoing for the past couple of years.. The shopping center is located just right beside it, where the rest of the plant was at one time.. the lease is up now and they had to move all of the cars out of there....
From what I gather, that building, which was the Emissions Test Lab, will be demolished soon to make way for more shopping centers... I actually had a chance to walk into there and take a look around.. All I was able to see was just a bunch of offices located in the front of the building.. looking through the glass windows on the side of this building shows it to be bare bones empty..
I do have some pictures of it if anyone would like to see them.. I took what pictures I could of it.. That is where my 92 RS was built and it was bought from Competition Chevrolet, which is now Rydell Chevrolet, located on Devonshire and Reseda, in Northridge, California...

 

[QUOTE=whyt86roc;3130290]From what I gather, that building, which was the Emissions Test Lab, QUOTE]
That building may be there for a while longer as GM still uses it.

 

My '83 Z was a Van Nuys build(3rd week June '83).Her paint is still in overall excellent shape.Does anyone know when the EPA/CARB regulations went into effect.Yes you can thank the Federal Goverment for NAFTA.Sent automakers,as well as others,running to Mexico and Canada to save on labor cost.

 

Here is a couple pics that I took of the building that was there.. the address to it is 14400 Arminta Street/Road... this is the only building that I know of left there... It is where Rydell Chevrolet kept the inventory at while I was working there... The "Powertrain" sign has been taken down sometime ago..
The side of the building with the fence on it is the one that is next to "The Plant" shopping center.. the other side is closest to the train station.. and the front of the building, which I believe is where they had the Emissions Lab at.. I was able to walk in there one day and take a look around inside, not much except for offices and a plate on the wall that stated "Emissions Lab' on it ...
I tend to think that it will be torn down now that there is nothing left in the building and Rydell has moved all of their inventory out... it's all fenced in now and there is a sign up that states 'New shopping center to be built soon'...

 

Great photos! It's nice to know that some remnant of our cars' old plant still remains, even if it is a small part and apparently only temporary.

The first shot with the office front and the stairs in it.... is that area accessible to the public? I'd love to have a shot of my GTAs in front of that setting.... That would be so cool to have and display.

 

dude i would have took that plate that would be cool to have. was there any old info left lying around in there?

 

Unfortunately, no one can get into the area... I was only there simply because I was an employee of Rydell and was there to drive a vehicle off of the storage lot... There was a guard at the gate that checked me in...
On the "Emissions Lab" plate, yeah if I could have I would've got it... I was only in there simply to get some paperwork on a new Z06 that I drove up to the Devonshire location....
I should've gotten a picture of the inside.. had thought about it but going down there was sporadic... never really knew when I was gonna be going there to get a car.... oh well...

 

Awesome Pics! It's great to finally catch a glimpse of Van Nuys. So much history....

 

This is a great thread, I really appreciate the pics. Does anyone have any pictures of it back in the day when it was operational?

 

The Building that is in the pictures above was built after the Original GM Plant was torn down.Sorry to say there is nothing left of the original buildings.

 

I took one of those Adresses on top and typed it in Google Earth and got this.

 

I tryed to to that but it could not find the address when i did it that is a cool pic

 

Then I took the address and searched it on Yahoo. The adress for a GameStop and some other stores came up. Took the Zip Code from there and used it in Google Earth.

And from the pics, theres a shopping center and a construction site.

 

Here's a link with brief article & pic of the Mall's Sign
http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/...y_vannuys.html

M

 

I have a pic of the plant back when it opened in 1948 - but cant post dont know how. Its amazing how nice van nuys ways back then very natural. Lot of farms.

 

[QUOTE=blue ss;3141769]I have a pic of the plant back when it opened in 1948 - but cant post dont know how. Its amazing how nice van nuys ways back then very natural. Lot of farms.[/Q]

I'm sure someone on here can help you post that, I'd love to see it!

Anyone have pics from the 80's????????

 

To go one step further, here is an additional picture from Google Earth of the area where the Plant was.. I saved this image since it would have been of the area where alot of the assembly plant was...
The parking lot between Arminta St and Cabrito Rd was not there anymore when I was working at Rydell... the little building located directly under the words Nollan Pl was also non-existant too... and if you look closely, right above Schlitz St you will see a huge mass of cars and vehicles sitting there.. I figure there was at least 7-8,000 vehicles sitting there when this picture was taken.. The building between Michaels St and Nollan Pl will be Home Depot and the building that is located right beside Cabrito Rd closer to Van Nuys Blvd is the old 'Emissions Lab' building.... the one I was talking about in an earlier post of mine... If you have Google Earth and can pull this image up and zoom in on it, you will notice the little track right beside this building next to Arminta St... that is what I've been told is the old Test Track that GM used for the cars...
I know now that the parking lot between Arminta and Cabrito road is now about 3-4 buildings..... When I was with Rydell, we only had the area between that little strip of the parking lot to the Emission Lab building and around it to use to storage... I know this is an older picture because we had used a makeshift shelter on the side closest to Cabrito for prep of the vehicles.. it had a blue tarp for the covering of it... this is not shown in the picture here..
My curiousity has me wondering about all the cars that are parked there off of Schlitz St...... does anyone remember this or have any ideas about it??
I am under a presumption that it was a holding lot for vehicles either going out on the train or coming in from the railyard for the dealerships in L.A.???
From what I could tell, it was a mixture of cars, vans and trucks sitting there...

 

For RPM WOT L98, I'll post up the picture of the Plant back in 1948........

 

Van Nuys in '48 looks nice huh

 

Thanks WHY T ROC

 

That is very cool, thanks. Nice picture, going in my folder.

 

Well it looks like the building on the corner of Arminta St and Van Nuys Blvd is now put in the halls of history.... I was out there on the 16-20 of February and went by the area and seen where they have started tearing the building down.... they had just started taking all the stuff off of the roof when I drove by there.....
Sad to see this happening, but it was expected.....

 

I would like to see them if you could email them to: domij@hotmail.com

 

Some inside pics of Van Nuys would be cool if anyone could dig some up. Both my Formula was built there ( 8/87) and my 72 Nova (8/71) almost exactly 16 years apart.

 

I love that this thread has been brought back, maybe we'll find more info and pics from someone new to it!

 

nice, i am in hollywood right now and was wondering where " the plant" was, been planning a photo shoot.

 

Here is a photo of my car as it was being lowered to the ground near the end of the assembly line.

Leonard

 

And one that is about half way through assembly.

Leonard

 

I guess the photo was too big??

 

Darn LeonardS!!! Thats an awesome photo to have especialyl since its your actual car. Do you still have the car and is it good shape??? I bet not many people can display a picture of their actual car on the assembly line. Would make a nice addition to a car show poster board...

J.

EDIT: Host the pictures on photobucket and then link them with the [IMG]xxxxxx[/IMG] tags. Then they'll display full size and no issues.

 

please tell us the story behind that picture! You must've worked there and special ordered it, right?

 

Leonard, that is an awesome picture. Do you have any more from that day? I see a black TA or Firebird with GFX in front of your car, I want that TA!
I've been meaning to ask you, what is the last 6 of your VIN? I saw a 92 1LE Camaro over the weekend and it was missing the build date sticker but was a 156xxx VIN and I thought that was close to your VIN that you mentioned before.

Any pics that you might have of that day will be greatly appreciated
Mark

 

Mark,

My VIN ends in 70006 I think. I have not posted it for a while but it is 70006 or 70007. I have many more pictures from the last day of production that I took while watching them build my car. The trouble is that they seem to be too big to post......and I am not "Mr. Computer" when it comes to posting or resizing photos. I will try again.