| In 1923, Walter P Chrysler was looking
for a place to build his dream car, the Chrysler 6. This place came in
the form of the old Maxwell-Chalmers assembly plant on East Jefferson
Avenue in Detroit. Chrysler had become the owner of the defunct bankrupt
company through reorganization, and on December 20, 1923 he had
the keys to what most MoPar fans refer to as the Jefferson Assembly
Plant. Until he purchased Dodge, he would operate from this and one
other plant.
It was here that the Imperial was built until 1959, when it moved
to the old De Soto plant on Warren Avenue. The 300 had been built here
as well, sharing some components with its luxurious big brother. By the
late 1980's the plant had fallen badly into disrepair; parts of three
floor of the plant had actually been condemned. Chrysler demolished the
old plant after ceasing production of the Omni-Horizon line in 1990 and
built a new billion dollar facility (shown in the collage on the
previous page) behind it, and in 1992 began production of the
popular Jeep Cherokee. The new plant is known as Jefferson North.
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