Willow Run Transmission

Willow Run Transmission (also called Ypsilanti Transmission Operations, YTO) was a General Motors factory in Ypsilanti Township, Michigan. Acquired by GM in 1953, it produced Hydramatic and other automatic transmissions for use in vehicles built by General Motors and other automakers. The factory first opened in 1941 as the Ford Willow Run facility, which built B-24 Liberator bombers during World War II, and its original building (still preserved within the fabric of the GM Powertrain plant) was designed by noted architect Albert Kahn.

Following the war, the bomber plant was sold as surplus property to the Kaiser-Frazer Corporation, a partnership of construction and shipbuilding magnate Henry J. Kaiser and Graham-Paige executive Joseph W. Frazer. From 1947 to 1953, Willow Run built Kaiser and Frazer cars for Kaiser-Frazer and its successor Kaiser Motors. Kaiser also produced cargo planes during the Korean War at Willow Run under license from Fairchild Aircraft, including the C-119 Flying Boxcar.

The Willow Run factory was acquired by General Motors in late 1953, after the Detroit Transmission plant in Livonia, Michigan, which held GM's only Hydramatic production line, burned down in mid-August; the line was up and running at Willow Run a mere nine weeks after the fire. The plant grew over the years from the 3,500,000 square feet (330,000 m²) bomber plant to the nearly 5,000,000 square feet (460,000 m²) GM Powertrain factory and engineering center that the company abandoned as part of its 2009 bankruptcy. A parcel of land south of the Powertrain facility became Willow Run Assembly, which produced cars until 1992, later being sold by GM and becoming the Willow Run Business Center.

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