GM Renovating Historic Durant-Dort Factory To House Auto Archives

When the word “archives” comes up on conversation, our first thought instantly goes to a library-like hall that is filled to the brim with high shelves and old documents. But automakers tend to have much larger and louder archives full of things like concept cars, half-finished projects, and historically-significant vehicles.

At over 600 vehicles, GM’s Heritage Collection is one of the largest such car collections on the planet, never mind the many pieces of important literature also included in the archives. With the General leaner and stronger than ever, the time is right to give this important collection a home of its own, and GM is in the process of renovating the historic Durant-Dort Factory (known as Factory One) to become the new home for this important collection of cars and documents.

Dating back to 1880 when it originally opened as the Flint Cotton and Woolen Mills company, it was just six-years later that a young Crapo Durant and Josiah Dallas Dort would lease the empty building and found the Flint Road Cart Company. Durant would later go on to found the successful Buick Motor Company, the first building block in the General Motors story. Hence the name, “Factory One.”

So far GM has already invested over $3 million into renovating the exterior and installing new windows and doors. The next phase of the project will include a new roof and interior renovations in preparation for the eventual transfer of the Heritage Collection. In addition to housing historic vehicles, the new archives will serve as a place for meetings, seminars, and STEM classes. This is just the latest of many large investments in the Flint, Michigan, community, which some felt had been abandoned by “Old GM.”

But new GM is paying homage to the past by preserving it for future generations, while helping rekindle life in a city that played such an important role in its founding.