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Closed Pontiac Assembly plant auctions equipment

Louis Aguilar / The Detroit News

Pontiac — Bob Blood spent more than three decades working in
Pontiac
for General Motors Co. like his father and grandfather did. On Thursday, he stood at the end of the line at Pontiac Assembly, the 3.5 million-square-foot
factory that did not survive GM's bankruptcy.

"I'm walking among ghosts," said Blood, the 60-year-old Waterford resident, as he stood here in what used to be the final inspection area for trucks.

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All that is left are the skeletal remains of the line. The signs that once said Pontiac Assembly or GM have been painted black. It was so quiet on the long
barren plant floor Thursday that it was possible to hear people talking 50 yards away.

"To be honest, I came just to see the place again," said Blood, who retired three years ago. "It's very melancholy."

Blood was among the hundreds of buyers and spectators who attended an auction Thursday of the remnants of Pontiac Assembly, which closed just over a year
ago after opening in 1972.

For much of the past decade, entire factories have been sold piece by piece in auctions like this one, which was held by Maynards Auctions & Liquidations.
Pontiac Assembly is one of eight factories where Maynards will conduct sales this month. Five plants are in Michigan, and all of them were part of the
auto industry.

The men who attend these auctions tend to work for companies that want to sell the machinery for scrap. Or they work for firms that refurbish the machinery
and hope to resell them — often to foreign companies. Or they represent foreign companies.

"I went to (another) GM auction a while back, and it was all Indians and (Chinese)

who bought just about everything for pennies on the dollar, " said Steve Rusinowski, who works for a U.S. Equipment Co., a Detroit firm that resells machinery.

Rusinowski regularly attends factory auctions. While Pontiac Assembly consistently won
quality
awards for its production, the actual assembly line "isn't worth much now," he said.

"It's too specialized," Rusinowksi explained. "My bet is that the line is going to be sold tosomeone who's going to tear out parts of it (to resell), but
most of it will be turned into scrap."

Also among the crowd are former GM workers like Blood. His bonds to the Pontiac plant date back to the late 1920s, he said, when his grandfather Milton
Blood began working at a Pontiac plant. But he said he realized a day like this might come.

"I'm proud of my family history, but there was a time that I could have gotten my sons in the plant, and I thought, 'No, it's better now to diversify,'"
he said. "Life changes, and that's just the reality."

Jim Chambers, 59, and Merle Engel, 62, came to look at the assembly line where Engel worked for 31 years.

"I don't miss it at all," said Engel, who worked here until the plant died. "Tooling for 30 years takes a toll on your body."

"It was a nice plant," said Chambers, who worked here 32 years. "It's just a shame."

GM retiree Gary Haskell also tried to be realistic as he attended his first factory auction.

"Of course, I think about the thousands of jobs that are now gone, but that's not a new feeling," said Haskell, 58, a skilled trades electrician who was
attending for a Lansing firm that refurbishes the machines.

"I have not a bitter bone in my body against GM, and I am so proud to have worked there," he said. "If there are words to fully explain what I'm seeing
, I just don't know what they are."

Haskell will have more opportunities to explore those feelings.

Next week he attends the auction of the former GM Grand Rapids stamping plant where Haskell worked before he retired.

laguilar at detnews.com

Daniel Mears contributed.