Cool Piece of Trivia Amid a Sad Story

Picture copyright brachauto.com

A few weeks ago, I was driving down I-75 from Detroit, through southern Michigan, and into Ohio. I passed a long - and I mean long - train that paralleled I-75. The train, chugging along south for the Ohio border, brought to mind so many people I know who have moved out of the state due to the paltry Michigan economy.

Looks like another auto supplier is making that trek south - this time to Kentucky.

The German steelmaker, ThyssenKrupp AG, is hightailing it out of Detroit by December. According to the Free Press, their Detroit plant is hemmoraging money to the tune of $28 million in the last quarter alone.

Now, the 2-million-square-foot factory builds parts mainly for Ford's Expedition and Lincoln Navigator large SUVs, which are being redesigned later this year. Combined U.S. sales for those SUVs fell 23% this year through April. ThyssenKrupp declined to say whether it will be a supplier on the new model.

Cool piece of trivia: Their 82 year-old plant built the body for the '55 T-bird.

As many as 8,000 people worked at the Detroit plant in the mid-1950s, making roofs, doors and fenders for General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and the former Chrysler Corp...

The plant is on 85 acres east of downtown Detroit, with a facade that's a replica of Philadelphia's Independence Hall. In 1924, Budd Co. bought the factory from Liberty Motor Co., which built cars there from 1919 until 1923. ThyssenKrupp purchased Budd in the mid-'70s.

Picture copyright seriouswheels.com