Highland Park Chrysler Plant and Headquarters

01 / The story of this place

Make time for these

The factory complex on Oakland Avenue in Highland Park began in 1907 under the Brush Motor Company and passed through Maxwell-Chalmers ownership before Walter P. Chrysler took control and founded the Chrysler Corporation there in 1925, keeping it as his company's headquarters and main assembly plant. Chrysler's stylist Virgil Exner worked from this campus while shaping the sweeping "Forward Look" cars of the 1950s, and decades later it was where Lee Iacocca ran the company's dramatic 1980s turnaround and government-backed rescue after joining as chairman in 1978. Chrysler moved its headquarters to a new complex in Auburn Hills in 1996, ending the Highland Park site's ninety-year run as the automaker's nerve center. The old factory and office buildings were torn down soon after, and by 1999 the 150-acre Oakland Park industrial park had risen in their place, now home to logistics and manufacturing tenants rather than automobiles.

1. Became Chrysler's headquarters when Walter P. Chrysler founded the company here in 1925
2. Virgil Exner styled the 1950s "Forward Look" cars from this campus
3. Lee Iacocca ran Chrysler's 1978–1980s rescue from these offices
4. Chrysler left for Auburn Hills in 1996; the site was demolished and became Oakland Park