 
Patrick
Member
Username: Patrick
Post Number: 5169
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 - 1:58 pm: |    |
Apparently, Chrysler was set to build their headquarters adjacent to White Chapel cemetery in Troy in the 70’s I believe. The state even built a special ramp off I-75 for this but it never happened. Any idea why they never built there? Where would it have been located exactly? |
Craig
Member
Username: Craig
Post Number: 490
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 - 2:01 pm: | |
880 Long Lake, current location of BBDO. |
Burnsie
Member
Username: Burnsie
Post Number: 1210
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 - 3:33 pm: | |
Maybe as Chrysler's finances hit rock bottom in 1979, the company couldn't afford to build a new headquarters. Or the recession of 1975 might have halted building plans as well. |
Tkelly1986
Member
Username: Tkelly1986
Post Number: 434
Registered: 01-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 - 4:14 pm: | |
Its too bad it did not go through, because they may be up for a new HQ about now and downtown may have been an option.....but I still doubt it. |
Bobj
Member
Username: Bobj
Post Number: 3000
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 - 7:52 pm: | |
I worked for Chrysler in the late 70's, they could barely afford to pay us, remember they were banking on the K car and the mini van to save them. |
56packman
Member
Username: 56packman
Post Number: 1905
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, November 22, 2007 - 12:55 am: | |
Tkelley--Chrysler isn't going anywhere, and wouldn't think of leaving their very efficient headquarters campus in Auburn Hills, especially given their current cash flow/sales status. Everything at the Auburn Hills CTC is in the same complex--executives can go to engineering, styling can go to engineering or administration etc. without going outside or getting in a car and traveling, unlike Ford (God only knows how they get anything done as fragmented as their engineering and executive buildings are) and GM.
In the late 70s Chrysler did not have the K-car in the hopper yet, it was not introduced until the fall of 1980, as a 1981 model year. The minivan did not come along until the fall of 1983 as an '84 model. The minivan was developed at Ford by designers and planners working under Iacocca/Hal Sperling. Ford didn't like the idea, that team landed at Chrysler with Mr.I and had the autonomy to produce it there, using the K-car technology on a new platform.
Chrysler went through a huge crisis right before the introduction of the Aspen/Volare' in the mid 70s, shutting down all production until those models were ready to roll. They kept producing the leviathans like the Newports, New Yorkers and Imperials, The Duster, Scamp and importing the Mitsubishi cars--the Sapporo, etc.
The boldest product move was the Omni/Horizon, the first transverse engine front wheel drive compact car built in the US for the US market. |
Detroit313
Member
Username: Detroit313
Post Number: 556
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, November 22, 2007 - 1:06 am: | |
Yeah. Chrysler won't be leave Auburn Hills anytime soon. Detroit would have to cut Chrysler's taxes for the next 500 years, give them the land and build a complex for them.
And Chrysler would still stay till the year 2607!
<313> |
Tkelly1986
Member
Username: Tkelly1986
Post Number: 435
Registered: 01-2004
| | Posted on Friday, November 23, 2007 - 12:28 am: | |
I was only saying if they had gone to Troy they may be up for relocation about now...I was not saying they are in their current state. I know they area not leaving Auburn Hills. |