A black and gleaming chromed Pontiac Chieftain rolled off the Arlington General Motors assembly line in 1954, the first of more than 11 million vehicles with assorted name plates to come.
Take note: The big automaker doesn’t produce Pontiacs anymore. That brand ended in 2009. For a while the plant also cranked out a steady stream of Oldsmobile 88s and Cutlasses at a healthy clip – 55 an hour.
Make an additional observation: GM pulled the plug on the 108-year-old Oldsmobile brand in 2004.
And yet, dodging bullet after proverbial bullet, the Arlington plant keeps cranking out SUVs, Chevrolet Tahoes and Suburbans, along with GMC Yukons and Cadillac Escalades. This despite news in late November that GM plans to close five plants in North America, eliminating some models, cutting back production of others and putting 14,000 jobs on the chopping block. Call it a corporate response to the changing market dynamics coupled with growing efficiencies of robotics and artificial intelligence in manufacturing.
There’s no doubt Arlington has been lucky to keep the plant and its more than 4,200 jobs in place for more than six decades, going on seven. But it hasn’t all been luck, the city displaying a dogged tenacity whenever change threatens the plant.
Experts agree the single greatest danger arrived in 1991, a year Richard Greene remembers well because he was mayor. His assistant told him the GM chairman was on the phone.
“GM brass called their plant city mayors from time to time and I always enjoyed the opportunity to reinforce Arlington’s commitment to supporting our city’s leading corporate employer,” Greene recalls. He assumed it was a protocol call. It wasn’t.
“Chairman Bob Stempel described what I already knew – that the national recession was taking a toll,” Greene said. “He went on to say something I feared – that sales were way down on the Chevrolet Caprice they were building in Arlington. It was the least popular of the company’s entire lineup.”
Worse, they were building it not only in Arlington but also in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Stempel told Greene that GM didn’t need to be building a car it couldn’t sell in two different plants and that the Arlington plant’s cars cost more because of supplier chain costs.
“I was stunned,” Greene said, not relishing the idea of a shuttered plant that could be an economic albatross for years.
But it wasn’t a done deal. Stempel indicated that no decision on which plant to close would be made right away. Greene called an emergency city council session, giving every member GM-related assignments, and also called Gov. Ann Richards, along with every member of the Texas congressional delegation. By contrast the Ypsilanti reaction was to file court actions and to threaten strikes and a worker slowdown.
A combined package of incentives for GM was quickly produced. But a greater effect, Greene believes, was a “Keep GM: The Heart of Arlington” drive that included everything from banners and events to thousands of cars bearing the bumper sticker slogan. Even the local auto union agreed to rework its contract.
It worked: Not only did GM chose the Arlington plant but – the city dodging another bullet when the Caprice ceased production two years later — the automaker also transformed the 250-acre plant into a robotic miracle building light trucks and SUV’s.
The heart beat goes on. GM has invested nearly $2 billion in Arlington plant improvements since 2011 and is undergoing a $1.4 billion retooling and expansion now. There’s another big perk: the opening this year of the $250 million Arlington Automotive Logistics Center at the site of the now-razed Six Flags Mall. Assorted suppliers locating there will provide more than 1,000 additional jobs. Running three shifts, the plant rolls 1,200 SUVs off the assembly line daily, paying a million dollars in salary in the process – every day.
Though the success of the Arlington plant seems to ride against the trends of smaller, more economical vehicles, Greene offers a different view.
“While transformation to alternative vehicles, self-driving and such suggests times are changing, the SUV demand seems unabated,” the former mayor observes. “Take a look at any big parking lot and see what consumers want.”
A look at Tahoe sales reveals that he is, so far, correct – Tahoe purchases alone were up 20 percent in the last quarter.
O.K. Carter is a former editor and publisher of the Arlington Citizen-Journal and was also Arlington publisher and columnist for the Star-Telegram and founding editor of Arlington Today Magazine. He’s the author of the definitive book on Arlington’s colorful history, Caddos, Cotton and Cowboys: Essays on Arlington.
okcarter@bizpress.net
