The original Jefferson Avenue (Detroit) plant was built by Chalmers in 1907. Falling on hard times, Chalmers built cars for Maxwell (the future Chrysler) under contract starting in 1916. The new Chrysler Corporation (a shell company) absorbed both Maxwell and Chalmers in 1925, and the plant continued to make Maxwells, moving on to Imperials, Dodges, DeSotos, trucks (for one year only), the smallest Plymouths and Dodges ever made (Omni/Horizon), and the K and E cars.
Burton Bouwkamp wrote, "The Chrysler plant straddled Jefferson Avenue. The Kercheval body shop was
on the north side of the street and the Jefferson engine manufacturing and
car assembly plant was on the south side. The bodies came across Jefferson
Avenue in an enclosed overhead conveyer. After vehicle assembly and final OK
the cars were driven through the 'header house' for shipment to dealers."
The plant was fronted by the noted 1933 Office and Display building designed by Albert Kahn, built in 1933 and once home to the Industrial Engines Division. The area was home to numerous Chrysler plants in the 1930s.
Fronting on Jefferson Avenue was a large showroom where Chrysler Division products were displayed, but not sold (because that would have been the "factory" competing with their Detroit dealers.) Chrysler sales and division
management offices were above the showroom.
Next door was a garage where customers could get their cars serviced by Chrysler personnel.
I came to the Jefferson plant in 1954 as the Resident
Motor Engineer. I worked for Bob Rodger, who was the Chief
Engineer for Chrysler. We were called "resident engineers" because we were on
location and represented Central Engineering (Highland Park) to Chrysler
Division Manufacturing, Sales, Service, Advertising, Public Relations, etc.
If we couldn't handle the Division's technical need, we referred it, and followed up, for answers with Central Engineering.
Chalmers
1909-1916
Maxwell
1916-1925
Chrysler
1924-1978
Imperial
1925-1958
1961-1975
DeSoto
1933-1936
1968-1960
Dodge
1959-1966
Dodge trucks
1980
K and E cars
1981-88
Omni/Horizon
1988-90
The first serious problem that I encountered was premature camshaft lobe wear. We were failing camshaft lobes in the first 20 minutes of engine operation. It took several months of 24/7 laboratory work at Central Engineering to solve this; we eventually changed tappet material, added a special coating to the tappet face, changed tappet and cam profiles to promote tappet rotation, and added an anti-scuff additive (ZDDP) to the break-in oil. The problem was so serious that it threatened production of the Firedome V8 engine.
A more mundane activity was to review merchandising
copy and technical service bulletins for technical accuracy.
In 1960 the Corporation went through a major reorganization. Manufacturing
was removed from the sales divisions and centralized in a Car and Truck Assembly Group (CATAG) under a corporate manufacturing VP (Fred Glassford). The Jefferson and Kercheval plants became part of CATAG. [General Motors went through a similar reorganization.]
When the Jefferson Avenue facility was closed around 1990, it was one of the oldest running American auto assembly plants, with over eight decades in service; the plant had made 8,310,107 cars and trucks.
Jefferson North (1993-present)
The nearby Jefferson Avenue North plant, which has made Grand Cherokees and Commanders ever since, was built as the result of a land deal between Chrysler and the City of Detroit (thanks, Ken Chester Jr., for the correction and additional information).
Jefferson North was designed as a flex plant, which is why it can make Grand Cherokees and Commanders on the same line.
The plant had 2.7 million square feet in 2008 and 3 million square feet in 2016.
Work on the plant was started in 1991; it went into operation in 1992 and was expanded in 1999 and 2009-2010. It always made Grand Cherokees and is the only factory ever to produce Jeep Commanders.
On August 13, 2008, Tom LaSorda announced that Chrysler will expand and upgrade the Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit, to produce the next generation Grand Cherokee. Included in the plan was a 285,000 square foot expansion for a more flexible body shop, modern lighting and energy management, decanting technology to cut emissions, and burning paint sludge to produce energy.
In May 2010, having finished the new body shop and other upgrades, Jefferson North launched the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee; it was followed in November by the 2011 Dodge Durango. The three million square foot plant, hailed as one of the last in an urban setting, had been changed quiet a bit to build Durangos, which were ten inches longer than Grand Cherokees; each workstation had to be lengthened by one foot, and since there was not enough space to extend the assembly line, the team compressed some stations and "worked on process efficiencies" to make it fit.
The plant also started using automatic vehicle identification to track each model; the line automatically stopped if the wrong parts were loaded. Robots had to be altered, with the seat installation tool gaining a third installation arm and a new robot added to seal the Durango rear window and drill holes into the roof (for the roofrack). Even the "shaker," used to find buzzes, squeaks, and rattles, had to be changed.
A new body shop was more flexible, to accommodate the Durango; the old body shop is now used as a metrics center, to test cars' dimensions for quality assurance.
Thanks to Carolyn Allmacher, the photographer for most photos on this page.
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