The Technician

Issue date: 8/6/08 Section: News

General Motors was founded in Flint 100 years ago and despite today's troubles the people of Flint continue to be proud of their heritage and determined to celebrate it. On Saturday July 20th, Saginaw Street was crammed with cars representing GM's history and many of them had been built in Flint. The classic cars were impressive, beautiful - clearly displaying their owner's pride and dedication.

Mr. David White, Kettering University's director of archives, helped design the event along with a group of fellow auto enthusiasts. In an interview with the New York Times (July 18, 2008) Mr. White said, "It's to have something positive for the community and to bring people back to the center city and show them that Flint's not dead, that positive things are happening." Mr. White's group managed to raise $80,000 for the event, although sadly GM contributed nothing. However Jamie Hresko, the GM vice president of Quality, did attend the celebrations and said GM is still committed to Flint. Mr. Hresko is a native of Flint, a graduate of Kettering University, and commutes daily from Flushing to downtown Detroit. In an interview with ABC 12 news (July 18, 2008) Mr. Hresko included Kettering in his future vision for General Motors, "Probably within the last four or five months, we've looked at some opportunities within the school to try to work on activities such as advanced propulsion and those kind of things..."

Flint-built Chevrolets and Buicks did dominate the show and the parade later in the day. I attended the event with three friends - Andrew, Ron and Dave; we liked the Corvettes, the El Caminos and especially the older Cadillacs. The most interesting car I saw in the show was a 1925 "Flint." The owner, William Vigus, was great to talk to. He had owned the car for 9 years, which included 2 years of restoration. He did the plating himself, but left the beautiful blue paintwork to 'Hotrods' and the interior to 'Kimble.' The car won 'best of show' at the Sloan Summer Fair and will be the feature show at next year's show. However the car was barred from the parade because it was not considered a real GM.

As soon as we left William Vigus our attention was immediately diverted to the magnificent, deep and full resonance of an American muscle car. It was a 1969 Hertz Oldsmobile owned by Bob Conlle. In 1996 the car won the St. Angus car show, and in 1998 he met Doc Watson the famous guitar player as well as gaining his signature. Bob let us know that his car was not a 'trailer queen' - even though he took six years to restore the vehicle. He regularly enters burnouts contests and even allows his son to spin the 360's in it - Bob's a very laid back guy. Interestingly the plating was done by William Vigus - car restoration is clearly a close community. At the moment Bob is restoring 6 other cars, but he jokingly let us know that his wife only lets him work on the car once a week, and that is as long as he does not go bowling.

In the 1970's General Motors employed about 80,000 Flint residents - today the number is sadly down around 8,000. So I am sure it was with mixed feelings that the residents of Flint celebrated the 100th anniversary of the birth of General Motors. But I am glad they did. My friends and I had a lot of fun. We felt a lot of civic pride and community spirit as we watched a hundred year's of General Motors vehicles parade along Saginaw Street on July 20th 2008.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools