B.O.P. & G.M.A.D.

This is a nice color photo I found that matches the one shown below.

These two pages from a 1938 press release shed some light on pre WW II assembly operations for Buick.

This is the Fremont, California plant which opened in 1962 as a G.M.A.D. (General Motors Assembly Division) plant. This particular facility would become the General Motors and Toyota joint venture plant after the original facility ceased production in 1982. It would reopen in 1984 as the Nummi (New United Motor Manufacturing Inc.) factory, and is now scheduled to close in March 2010. Shown on the assembly line here is a 1964 Buick Skylark just receiving it's body being followed by a Pontiac. The car in front of the Buick is an Oldsmobile F-85.  A good story from 1983.

This rather rare dust jacket (not as rare as the hardback) for the 50th anniversary book of Buick shows the locations of the B.O.P.plants in 1953.

Contrary to some written histories, here is a B.O.P. assembly plant in 1939. Most histories I have read claim 1946 - 1959 as the span in which these plants were constructed. Terry Dunham, the co author of: "The Buick: A Complete History" has corrected me pertaining to the first California B.O.P. plant. "Buick's first production on the West Coast came out of a plant located in South Gate, California down around Los Angeles".According to Wikipedia the South Gate plant opened in 1936 and was the second B.O.P. after the Linden, New Jersey plant. General Motors did establish the B.O.P. Sales Company in 1932. In this photo we can clearly see first, the rear quarter of a 1939 Pontiac coupe, the car receiving it's body with the unmistakable grille is a 39 Buick, and the car after the Buick is an Oldsmobile. The Linden N.J. plant was home to GM automobile assembly operations from 1937 to 2005, they assembled nearly 9 million vehicles in its 68 year history, including Buick's, Cadillac's, Oldsmobile's, Pontiac's, the Chevrolet Blazer and the GMC Jimmy. During World War II, they produced Grumman Wildcat fighter planes. Automobile production resumed in 1946.   L.A. Buick plant 1936.