Note: This photography was done for the GM Heritage Center website refresh completed in December 2012.
The GM Heritage Center first opened its doors in Sterling Heights, Michigan in 2004 to preserve the rich history of GM brands. Since then, the leased facility has housed a portion of the GM Heritage Archive, as well as a selection of GM’s historic vehicle collection, and served as a headquarters to GM’s Heritage team.
In recent years, the Heritage team has searched for a larger, permanent facility to display an increasing number of GM’s archives, including the company’s vehicle collection, product catalogs, sales brochures, press materials and promotional records. Today the company announced it has selected a new location for heritage operations — the company’s former Customer Care & Aftersales world headquarters in Grand Blanc, Michigan.
The move to the Grand Blanc facility brings GM’s heritage operations closer to the company’s birthplace in Flint, Michigan and Genesee County, which is also home to Factory One.
“As General Motors transforms the future of the automobile, we also celebrate and commemorate our storied past and rich history with our fantastic GM Heritage Center,” said GM President Mark Reuss. “Placing it near our company’s birthplace only makes sense and, much like our investment in Factory One and in our current operations in the area, aligns perfectly with our strong commitment to Flint, where it all began for us.”
The move will take place in a phased approach as the Grand Blanc facility is renovated.
A new home in Grand Blanc
The former CCA world headquarters facility provides a number of advantages over the current space. The facility has easy freeway access and is situated on 34 acres of land, partially surrounded by a wooded nature area with walking trails. The increased footprint of the space will provide the opportunity to expand programming with more vehicle and archive display areas. Eventually, the GM Heritage Center expects to resume hosting events in the space.
In the near term, the Heritage team will focus on maintaining its current offerings and operations in the new space, including assisting with research requests and hosting researchers onsite.
About GM Heritage Collection and GM Heritage Archive
The GM Heritage Collection is made up of approximately 600 cars and trucks, which represent GM industry firsts, significant technological experiments, concept cars, special-interest styling and performance one-offs along with notable race cars and milestone production vehicles. The collection is ever-changing, and new vehicles are constantly being obtained to represent GM’s product story of the past century.
Additionally, the GM Heritage Archive includes over eight million photographic images, 250,000 video masters and motion picture films, 1.5 million digital media files, and more than one million pieces of microfilm that are available to the public upon request.
Stay tuned as we make progress on our move and approach the reopening of the GM Heritage Center in Grand Blanc.