jagamajajaran

In May 2015, GM announced it would invest $439 million at the Bowling Green Assembly "for facility upgrades, including a new 450,000 square-foot paint shop - almost half the size of the entire current production facility."

On April 7, 2016, a story in the Bowling Green Daily News regarding the progress of the expansion revealed that the new construction would add 870,000 square feet to the existing plant.

Early construction photos revealed a paint collection "underbooth" area as well as a second floor in what looks to be a very significant portion of the new paint shop building.





I've been on the hunt for quite some time for satellite imagery of new construction so that I could create a scale diagram of both the old and new building. Google's satellite imagery of the plant continues to be imagery from 2014. However, I finally discovered TerraServer imagery of the plant site that is as recent as October 15, 2016.


You can take a look at the imagery from various dates via this direct link:
Bowling Green Assembly Satellite Imagery


BEFORE EXPANSION (Thanks to Corvette Blogger for providing the satellite photos for comparison!)




AFTER EXPANSION




With the new satellite imagery and Google Earth's measurement tool, I was able to sketch the footprint of the old and new buildings. The measurements may not be exact, but they are definitely close.



As you can see in the sketch, the footprint of the Paint Shop and Manifold Building is a little over 690,000 square feet. If the entire expansion project is 870,000 square feet, the remaining 180,000 square could easily be comprised of the underbooth and the second floor area in the Paint Shop.

Now, go back and look at the first two photos in this post. Could the underbooth and second floor be more than 180,000 square feet? If so, how many square feet is the expansion really going to be? GM told us 450,000 square feet in 2015 and 870,000 square feet in 2016. I wonder if they will have a new number for us for 2017?

Regardless, this expansion is huge!

With GM spending $439 million on the new facility and $44 million for a "capacity increase in the Performance Build Center," it leaves me wondering about the additional $290 million that GM announced in June of last year for the plant to "upgrade vehicle assembly operations with new technologies and processes."

In 2012 and 2013, GM spent $131 million on the C7 changeover. A large portion of this was spent to build the new body shop, including robotic frame assembly. The expanse of the new body shop took up most of the area in the plant where the Cadillac XLR assembly line had been. For comparison, GM only spent $19 million on the C6 changeover. Now, consider the additional $290 millions that GM has earmarked for an upgrade to vehicle assembly operations and it is reasonable to assume that there is going to be a very significant change taking place soon!

On January 2, I posted in another thread that I was going to go out on a limb and predict that the 2018 Corvette model year production start would be significantly delayed based on my speculation about how the $290 million will be spent. Will we see an entire gutting of the existing assembly line, which in essence has been in place since the beginning of the C5 production run, and a new assembly line that will take its place? I think that's exactly what we will see.

Oh, and by the way, if you go online to book a plant tour, there are no plant tour options available beginning the week of June 19, with the exception of August 21, 22, and 23. I think those three dates will be the last opportunity to visit the plant before a new assembly line is built. And if this is going to delay the 2018 MY production startup, it could help explain why GM wasn't in a rush to reveal the highly anticipated ZR1 in Detroit this month.

One thing is certain...the Corvette's future is exciting!

AORoads

I saw the footprint and digging both before and after from a distance. Knowing a little about construction, this is an impressive expansion, almost doubling the size of the smallest plant GM owns in the US. Thanks for your work on this one.

Along with the increases of budget, the time factor to construct has gone up over the years since the first announcement. Nothing would surprise me as to the completed size, the total dollars spent, the actual timeline, AND what will go on inside. It's a secret, and they're still allowed to have that discretion.

I will say, someday when one takes a tour of the factory, it will take longer.

A sidenote: I'd make a guess that a small sum of the budget was spent on geotech to make sure the new and old plant "sit well"---maybe even reinforce to be certain---since they're pretty close to the same soil condition as the NCM. And, the plant does not want to have floors giving way.

C7Joy

With all that space dedicated to paint, future Corvettes ought to be something to behold!

jagamajajaran

I added the following to my original post...

With GM spending $439 million on the new facility and $44 million for a "capacity increase in the Performance Build Center," it leaves me wondering about the additional $290 million that GM announced in June of last year for the plant to "upgrade vehicle assembly operations with new technologies and processes."

In 2012 and 2013, GM spent $131 million on the C7 changeover. A large portion of this was spent to build the new body shop, including robotic frame assembly. The expanse of the new body shop took up most of the area in the plant where the Cadillac XLR assembly line had been. For comparison, GM only spent $19 million on the C6 changeover. Now, consider the additional $290 millions that GM has earmarked for an upgrade to vehicle assembly operations and it is reasonable to assume that there is going to be a very significant change taking place soon!

On January 2, I posted in another thread that I was going to go out on a limb and predict that the 2018 Corvette model year production start would be significantly delayed based on my speculation about how the $290 million will be spent. Will we see an entire gutting of the existing assembly line, which in essence has been in place since the beginning of the C5 production run, and a new assembly line that will take its place? I think that's exactly what we will see.

Oh, and by the way, if you go online to book a plant tour, there are no plant tour options available beginning the week of June 19, with the exception of August 21, 22, and 23. I think those three dates will be the last opportunity to visit the plant before a new assembly line is built. And if this is going to delay the 2018 MY production startup, it could help explain why GM wasn't in a rush to reveal the highly anticipated ZR1 in Detroit this month.

One thing is certain...the Corvette's future is exciting!

jagamajajaran

Take a look at the pics I added courtesy of the Corvette Blogger.

mschuyler

What is a (the) "Manifold Building"?

jagamajajaran

^^^ "Manifold Building" is how that part of the expansion has been labeled in reports by GM. My guess is that it is a building with several functions that bridge the old assembly line, the new building functions, and receiving/shipping.

Z06 1of38

That entire expansion is for storage of Black & White's returned A8 transmissions.

Corvette ED

With that expansion I think there will be two different car lines being built in that plant. Now will that be Corvette/Mid Engine Corvette or Corvette/and some kind of Cadillac or Corvette/??? Only time will tell.

Glenn Quagmire

Nice work Jag!

Given that current vette sales are relatively similar to recent years, and a changing demographic; it's extremely difficult to fathom how a project of this scale could be justified without the addition of another line. Unless the price point increases dramatically, there is no way that there is enough current volume to spend a half billion dollars on painting vettes. When that was first reported, a dealer friend of mine that owns a Chevy store agreed that it couldn't possibly be for strictly painting cars...

Eagle3sh

There is a reason those new race cars are carrying the Cadillac logos.

roadbike56

Jag, Thanks for sharing. Looks like GM is up to something beyond painting Corvettes.