A look back on the history of Delphi Flint East

Aug 13, 2023

FLINT, MI – Nov. 1 marks the end of an era for the group of Flint manufacturing facilities known as Delphi Flint East – or Plant 43 – as General Motors announced in February 2013 that the plant would cease operations and relocate the bulk of the work to Mexico.

The 287 workers employed at Delphi Flint East had relocation rights and most have since gone to work at other GM facilities in Flint and in Lansing.

The North Dort Highway plant wasn't always known as Flint East.

It was once world headquarters for AC Spark Plug, one of the most iconic auto parts names in history.

For almost 100 years, the factories on North Dort Highway produced countless spark plugs, as well as oil filters, air cleaners, dashboard instruments, fuel pumps and a variety of other products.

It was a site that has seen several incarnations, but for decades was the AC headquarters, overseeing AC operations in plants across the world, including Texas, Wisconsin and England.

In 1925, before it was a division of GM, AC Spark Plug bought the plant on Dort Highway from the Dort Motor Co., which had recently built the factory there to produce Dort automobiles. The Dort Motor Co. went out of business in 1924. When AC moved in, it increased the facility's floor space to nearly 470,000 square feet.

AC's operations were based on their original location on Industrial Avenue, at the old Chevy in the Hole site, which was razed in 1976.

"After AC started making auto parts on N. Dort Hwy. in 1925, the original site gradually gave way to the newer one until nothing was left," read a 1983 Flint Journal article.

At the time, workers at the original AC plant on Industrial Avenue considered the new Dort Highway plant to be flashy and new and short on character.

"They (foremen) used to threaten to ship us over to Dort Highway if we didn't gap the spark plugs right," said a former AC worker in a 1983 Flint Journal article.

Two years after acquiring the Dort Highway facility, AC founder Albert Champion died while on a business trip to France.

In 1929, General Motors bought the remaining AC stock from the Champion estate and in 1933, AC Spark Plug officially became a division of GM.

A 1975 Flint Journal article, with the headline "AC to demolish Industrial Ave. facility this month" read, "The 60-year-old complex, built by AC founder Albert Champion, has been phased out over several years. Many manufacturing operations, machinery, equipment and personnel have been absorbed into the main AC facilities on S. Dort Hwy., where seven manufacturing factories employ nearly 12,000 hourly and salaried employees."

By the 1980s, the site boasted six factories as well as engineering and administration buildings.

The plant survived highs and lows of the auto industry.

The site was officially named Flint East in 1987 when AC took over the Chevrolet facilities across town and named that location Flint West.

In 1988, Flint East became the headquarters for AC Rochester following a merger between AC Spark Plug and Rochester Products Division, but soon the headquarters moved to the Great Lakes Tech Center.

More consolidation under GM's divisions led to the facility being renamed to AC Delco Systems in 1994, and in 1995, the entire Automotive Components Group became Delphi Automotive Systems.

On June 11, 1998, Flint East followed in the footsteps of Flint Metal Fab, taking part in one of the longest strikes in GM history. The 54-day strike for which Flint East was a part almost stalled operations for the entire company within two weeks.

On July 28, GM agreed to the investment to Flint Metal Fab and to keep Flint East open until at least 2000.The union agreed to cooperate on efforts to increase productivity at both plants. The strike cost GM an estimated US$2.8 billion.

Shortly after the strike, it was announced that Delphi would be spun off in 1999 into what is now Delphi Corporation, and Flint East was for a time part of Delphi's Energy and Engine Management Systems division.

Flint East would fall back under General Motors’ control following a string of financial downfalls by Automotive Holdings Group – a collection of underperforming plants that Delphi felt needed to be changed.

Delphi declared bankruptcy in October 2005, and announced plans to close or sell 21 of its 29 US plants by Jan. 1, 2008, including Flint East.

Another agreement was reached between Delphi, GM and the UAW in 2007, allowing the Delphi Flint East plant to stay open for the next four years.

The agreement meant GM would supply the hourly UAW employees, while Delphi provided the management and equipment. The products made at the site were instrument clusters used in GM vehicles such as pickup trucks, SUVs and large vans.

The agreement expired in September 2011 and the decision was made to extend that agreement for an additional amount of time before it was announced in Feb. 2013 that the plant would close for good in Nov. 2013.

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