South Gate Assembly was a

General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...

automobile plant located at 2720 Tweedy Boulevard in the Los Angeles suburb of South Gate, California.Photos of South Gate Assembly plant
It opened in 1936 to build B-O-P (

Buick Buick () is a division (business), division of the Automotive industry in the United States, American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM). Started by automotive pioneer David Dunbar Buick in 1899, it was among the first American automobil ...

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- Pontiac) cars for sale on the West Coast. It was the first GM plant to build multiple car lines, resulting from a Depression-spawned move to cut production costs by sharing components and manufacturing. South Gate was the first of several B-O-P "branch" assembly plants (the second being the Buick-operated Linden plant), part of GM's strategy to have production facilities in major metropolitan cities. The originally Pontiac operated South Gate plant was part of GM's Southern California Division through 1942. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

the plant built Stuart M-5 and M5A1 light tanks at 500 per month. The location was under the management of GM's newly-created Buick-Oldsmobile-Pontiac Assembly Division created in 1945. These "branch" plants built cars for distribution to a specific region, in South Gate's case the US West Coast. By 1949 it was producing full-size cars from the Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Buick brands. During the mid-1950s it was General Motors' highest-output plant. Vehicles included the Oldsmobile 98, Pontiac Streamliner, and the Buick Special. It added production of the Pontiac Tempest, Oldsmobile F-85, and Buick Special compact cars alongside the full-size cars for 1961. When the compacts became intermediates for 1964, their production ceased at South Gate, and Chevrolet Impala full-size production was added. Chevrolet production by the Buick-Oldsmobile-Pontiac Assembly Division led to it being renamed the GM Assembly Division (GMAD) in 1965. The plant was converted from full-size car production to the subcompact Chevrolet Vega for 1975. This arrangement was short-lived, and GM returned the factory to building full-size Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, and Buick B-body vehicles for 1977. The Oldsmobile and Buick were dropped and the Cadillac DeVille added for 1979. Due to decreasing sales of the Chevrolet B-body cars, the plant was idled in March 1980. It was then retooled for subcompacts, building the 1982 Chevrolet Cavalier and Cadillac Cimarron. Slow sales and efforts to reduce air quality issues resulted in plant closure, with production ending on March 23, 1982. The plant site was later environmentally remediated and used as the location for new schools, including South East High School (opened 2005), which were built by the

Los Angeles Unified School District Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is a State school, public school district in Los Angeles County, California, United States of America. It is the largest public school system in California in terms of number of students and the List ...

to relieve severe congestion in the existing schools of South Gate.

References

{{General Motors factories General Motors factories Former motor vehicle assembly plants Motor vehicle assembly plants in California Manufacturing companies based in Greater Los Angeles South Gate, California Industrial buildings completed in 1936 Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1936 Vehicle manufacturing companies disestablished in 1982 1936 establishments in California 1982 disestablishments in California Defunct companies based in Greater Los Angeles

See also

References