Within the midst of an American manufacturing collapse, Flint, Michigan, spent tens of millions constructing a twisted monument to the very trade that was leaving its residents excessive and dry. AutoWorld, the world’s first automotive theme park, was bought as the reply to Flint’s woes. It will flip across the metropolis with the best unemployment within the nation. It lasted all of six months.
Whereas GM was busy slashing jobs in Flint, metropolis leaders concocted a hare-brained scheme, overvalued by a military of consultants with help from elected officers and federal packages. The thought was destined for greatness, one other approach for the folks of Flint to outlive off of automobiles as that they had carried out for many years. However from the beginning, the issues with AutoWorld had been apparent.
“If you ask Flint residents about AutoWorld, all of them say the identical factor: Both ‘Oh, we by no means went,’ or ‘We solely went one time — it was too costly for our household,’” Flint historian, College of Michigan-Flint archivist (and my sister) Colleen Marquis informed Jalopnik. She’s steward of all kinds of intriguing items of memorabilia from AutoWorld, Flint’s failed try on the world’s first automotive-themed amusement park.
(A particular due to the College of Michigan-Flint and their archivist for permitting me time to comb via their containers of paperwork and memorabilia pertaining to AutoWorld.)
“Have you ever ever seen a lot ridiculous merch?” she mentioned, as we went via the containers of rocks glasses, private grooming kits, espresso mugs and dollhouse furnishings, all emblazoned proudly with the admittedly very cool Six Flags AutoWorld brand. All of it from a park that was open common public hours for less than six months.
The assorted items of flotsam validated my cynical perception that such locations are constructed solely to soak up cash from vacationers lulled into spending by alcohol or nostalgia or delicate mind trauma (or all three.) From that angle, a theme park in Flint, Michigan, within the ’80s, when unemployment was typically over 17 p.c, clearly made no sense.
However there have been moments of perverse, possibly determined optimism. That or opportunism and grift. Perhaps AutoWorld was some combine of all of them. Wanting again on it, to the times when theme parks had been a giant deal, the times of Nationwide Lampoon’s Trip, it’s exhausting to inform how a lot was craven and the way a lot was silly.
Together with the tiny cups and ashtrays within the U of M-Flint archives are containers and containers of paperwork pertaining to the planning and growth of AutoWorld. The College didn’t have a lot to do with the plans, aside from permitting for just a few tons to be designated as overflow parking for AutoWorld in the summertime.
I actually assume “planning for overflow parking at AutoWorld,” might be the brand new “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.” It seems, not an entire lot is sensible in regards to the world’s first automotive themed amusement park. All the factor was a blunder, and the folks of Flint paid the worth for it.
How It Began
The thought to construct the primary automotive theme park in America’s Car Metropolis didn’t originate from Normal Motors, however from C.S. Harding Mott and his basis’s president, William White. Sure, that Mott, as in apple juice. His household got here from beverage cash, however this Mott invested within the automotive trade and was very lively in Flint. The Mott Basis would play a key function in getting AutoWorld constructed and ultimately sharing in its ruinous demise. GM would truly principally keep out of AutoWorld, aside from a $1 million donation. Former Normal Motors Chairman Roger Smith informed the Flint Journal again in 2009 that he might see the venture was doomed from the beginning, however there was no stopping civic leaders.
What Mott initially envisioned was an Automotive Corridor of Fame and guests heart, the place the proud historical past of the automotive trade could be highlighted. One thing extra akin to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, which Ford himself designed to have fun not simply the Ford Motor Firm and Detroit space achievements however industrial historical past on the whole. It will be a non-profit, hands-on museum or some form of science museum. Detroit designer Minoru Yamasaki, designer of the unique World Commerce Heart, was tapped to return got here up with plans for the middle in 1970. The ultimate architect for the park could be Randall Duell Associates — a agency answerable for 22 theme parks throughout the U.S.
Flint simply so occurred to be in the midst of an city revitalization venture that was purported to prop up an already struggling metropolis. Hundreds of thousands of {dollars} of funding flowed into the encompassing space. There was $80 million spent on constructing the College of Michigan-Flint campus. A $61 million Hyatt resort with 35,000-foot conference heart and 400 rooms opened downtown. An industrial park within the former St. John’s neighborhood, a 54,000-square-foot market with native outlets and River Village — $40 million in residential planning — had been nearly carried out earlier than the C.S. Mott Basis even purchased the area for AutoWorld. The area got here within the type of the Industrial Mutual Assist Auditorium — a former UAW-owned facility that hosted concert events by the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Billy Vacation for its members. The IMA could be absorbed into AutoWorld.
By then the preliminary estimate for the price of constructing AutoWorld had ballooned from $28 million in 1977 to $60 million. The park’s remaining prices would develop to $68 million earlier than it opened on July 4, 1984. So who paid for it? In response to the ebook No Miracles Right here: Combating City Decline in Japan And America by Theodore J. Gilman, the unique plan was for town to pay for no a part of the venture however the usage of federal funds specifically would come again to hang-out Flint. By 1980, Flint Mayor James Rutherford entered discussions with the US Division of Housing and City Growth about making use of housing grants to the constructing of AutoWorld. Seemingly with no self-awareness, Rutherford predicted success in successful grants as a result of Flint’s extremely excessive unemployment and poverty charges. He was proper and a bit over $13 million in federal funds went into constructing AutoWorld, regardless of the numerous want of the folks residing within the neighborhoods of Flint.
Historic Flint AutoWorld Basis was based to fund the constructing of the park by way of non-public funding. It will find yourself placing up $19.7 million to get the job carried out. The Mott Basis additionally put up a hefty, $14 million chunk — 1 / 4 of its yearly funds. The Mott Basis admitted funding AutoWorld would severely curtail different good it did within the metropolis. The state of Michigan tossed in almost $5 million after Republican Governor William Grawn Milliken got here round to ultimately help the venture. The town council additionally authorized a tax-exempt bond to the tune of $7.5 million. With all this official backing, non-public donations from town’s elite got here flooding in. Even former president Gerald Ford kicked in for AutoWorld.
Of the $13 million in HUD funds, Flint took out a $4.5 million CDBG bond to fund AutoWorld. The issue with that bond is that Flint needed to make funds of $727,000 yearly. Later, if town didn’t pay, the quantity could be deducted from the entire Group Growth Block Grant funds HUD dispersed throughout town. Organizations in Flint counted on the complete quantities from these grants yearly to maintain their doorways open. The town defaulted on the grant in 1987, forcing nonprofits within the metropolis to scale back providers or shut altogether. The Mott Basis gave Flint a $4.6 million grant, however a prepayment clause prevented town from paying the grant off suddenly. (Doing so would have incurred a $500,000 payment, which town additionally didn’t have on the time.)
The passion of the consultants employed by Flint who beforehand labored within the theme park trade bordered on manic. You possibly can nearly hear them claiming how theme parks put Brockway, Ogdenville and North Haverbrook on the map! As constructing value estimates rose so, too, did their predictions of income. AutoWorld was a two-hour drive from 2.8 million folks, they reasoned. Absolutely 1,000,000 guests a yr after 5 years wasn’t out of the query. And those that came visiting would keep within the park, on common 5 hours a go to. AutoWorld would offer 500 minimal wage jobs and 1,800 jobs within the surrounding space to deal with the inflow of holiday makers. Hundreds of thousands in revenue would roll in instantly and the end result could be a revitalized metropolis stuffed with hope once more. It will be that straightforward.
Over a decade of growth by a parade of consultants who pushed town nearly completely in the direction of a theme park morphed the common-or-garden dream of a science museum into one thing unrecognizable. No Miracles Right here cites consultants pushing town to repeat what others had carried out as the primary explanation for AutoWorld’s demise.
They definitely muddied the waters. Right here’s what an 1982 prospectus described all that AutoWorld would entail by Randall Duell Associates after the Historic Flint AutoWorld Basis inexperienced lit the venture:
What Is AutoWorld?
AutoWord has audio-animatronics, it has Indians, Waterfalls, log jams, log cabins, forests, historic perspective, crafts, eating places, a noticed mills, superb eating and night attract, outlets, snack bars, theaters, a re-creation of Flint’s outdated Saginaw Avenue, a common retailer, a carousel, bumper automobiles, distant management race automobiles, a huge three story tall V-6 engine, an electrifying exploration of the trade’s know-how right this moment – new know-how. AutoWord has arcade video games, auto artwork, exhibitory, video games, a group of cars, carriages, carts and bicycles, a library and archives, reside theater, an superior IMAX film, fantasia of the longer term, a transferring sidewalk historical past of the meeting line, impertinent mechanical horses, monkeys, damsels in misery, menacing mechanical chickens, innovations of all kinds, pioneers, and even an car present from the subsequent century, the good races of all time and a gallery of racing greats.
Impertinent mechanical horses? Menacing mechanical chickens? Wasn’t this purported to be a automobile museum? As soon as the consultants had carried out tens of millions in work, the tug of warfare grew to become between the Mott Basis and Six Flags itself. Six Flags needed the positioning to be extra of an leisure venue whereas the Basis struggled to maintain the historical past side alive. It’d do it with static displays and no thrills.
Consultants ultimately estimated that 930,000 attendees could be wanted to maintain the park working in its first yr when essentially the most hopeful real-world estimates put the variety of anticipated attendees at 600,000. Even from those that supposedly knew the biz and had been directing the selections from behind the scenes, AutoWorld was a misplaced trigger. However by now, it was too massive to cease.
Doomed To Fail
On July 4, 1984, AutoWorld opened after a decade of growth and tens of millions of {dollars} in investments and it regarded extremely lame:
At 300,000 sq. toes, AutoWorld was additionally the most important indoor theme park on the planet, stuffed with tropical crops that additionally in some way “recreated the banks of the Flint river.” Beneath its 70-ft large dome had been, carnival rides, freaky animatronics, performers and digital excursions, outlets, eating places, a three-story mannequin of a V6 engine, an IMAX theater and an entire host of different sights—however principally buying and shops stuffed with branded merch. There wasn’t the fun of a Busch Gardens or Six Flags theme park. Your choices had been pretty soporific rides, like a carousel and bumper automobiles, or sitting and watching a film or some nightmarish “humorous” historical past.
Or you may spend cash. Buy groceries. Dine out. Spending cash was the primary attraction at AutoWorld it appears. All this buying was on prime $8.95 for an grownup ticket—about $28 in right this moment’s {dollars}. Attendees had been spending cash, to spend cash, in one of many quickest fading cities in America with the best unemployment charge within the nation at the moment.
At present, we all know instructional leisure is usually neither. The clumsy blurring of the 2 soured AutoWorld’s essence proper from the beginning. Was it a spot you may take youngsters to on area journeys? Was it a spot for households to let free? By attempting to be each, AutoWorld ended up as neither. The builders grew to become too enamored with their imaginative and prescient because it grew and overlooked what makes theme parks enticing. As one skilled informed Vox for a 2021 article :
“Theme parks are all about us,” says Margaret King, who has studied and written about theme parks all through her profession and is the director of the Heart for Cultural Research and Evaluation, a market analysis institute. “It’s a museum of us, of America. It’s a distillation of the qualities we most worth and like about ourselves.”
We’re nostalgic for locations that by no means actually had been, she says. Disney’s Predominant Avenue USA, the thoroughfares themed to the early-Twentieth century that function gateways to the remainder of Disneyland and Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, are idealized portrayals of a extra genteel, if unrealistic America. They’re spotlessly clear, impeccably landscaped, and overflowing with cheery optimism (in addition to loads of souvenir merch). Visiting the Disney parks is “like going again to your hometown,” King says. “It’s the hometown that’s shared by everybody within the nation.”
The very predictable bother began nearly instantly after the parks July 4 grand opening. In a memo from Senator Donald Riegle Jr. from his Flint workplace to William White, president of the Mott Basis and spokesperson for the non-public buyers in AutoWorld, Riegle was nervous in regards to the low attendance as early as July 27.
“Attendance throughout the night has averaged between 200-300 folks; there doesn’t look like an attraction or incentive for people to return to the power; there may be some confusion as as to whether AutoWorld is instructional or leisure, and lastly, though there was no point out of it made publicly, the $8.95 entrance payment presents an issue for many individuals.”
To repair attendance issues, in addition to empty seats within the eating places at evening, AutoWorld dropped entrance charges after 6 p.m. to $5.95 and dinner reservations started to incorporate a tour of the power to try to attract visitors. Because the numbers fell additional and additional behind, everybody started to panic. Buyers quickly started to flee AutoWorld.
It was regarding when simply 2,500 guests walked via its halls on the unofficial opening day, discounted particularly for the residents of Flint. It was alarming when, by the primary week, attendance had solely reached 38,000. By the top of July, 100,000 folks visited, properly beneath the 110,000 anticipated. The 600,000 wanted within the first six months to remain within the black ended up at solely 439,000.
So what occurred? Riegle, who had additionally supported the venture, nailed each downside with AutoWorld proper on the top just some weeks after its opening.
AutoWorld was opening at a time when Flint’s largest employer, Normal Motors, was starting to wind down manufacturing within the industrial metropolis. In 1978, GM employed greater than 80,000 Flint-area residents, in line with a research by Michigan State College. By 2015, that determine plummeted, to just about 7,000, and this wind down was ramping up proper when AutoWorld opened. From Ryan Felton’s story What Normal Motors Did To Flint:
Following World Conflict II, the automaker pursued a company technique that centered on shifting the technique of manufacturing to the suburbs and away from city cores, in line with Andrew Highsmith, a College of California-Irvine assistant historical past professor who has extensively researched Flint.
In Flint’s suburbs, Highsmith wrote in a 2013 paper, GM constructed eight factories, all forming “an arc across the metropolis.”
Because the Seventies and 80s approached, GM’s plant closures in Flint ticked upward, compounding town’s rising monetary duress, forcing it to the brink of chapter, in line with Highsmith. To maintain GM on the town, metropolis officers authorized quite a few tax abatements for the automaker, which “coincided with a internet lack of almost 15,000 native positions at GM,” Highsmith wrote.
The thriving firm city wasn’t such any longer.
Theme parks had saved different cities, however copying and pasting that answer on to Flint was by no means going to make sense. Positive, almost 3 million folks lived inside a two hour drive of Flint, however when you’re carried out with AutoWorld you’re now in Flint; a metropolis that works for a residing, with out the attraction of honest climate or further websites to go to like say, Orlando, Florida or Anaheim, California. The folks residing three hours from AutoWorld could be folks from Michigan, and the state at giant wasn’t doing so scorching within the ’80s with unemployment at 11 p.c. Flint can also be over an hour’s drive from Michigan’s largest metropolis, Detroit, and its largest airport, Detroit Metro. It’s flat, so the snowy winters don’t even present the attraction of seasonal outside recreation, and Flint is surrounded by factories. It’s simply not in a spot the place you’d assume “yeah, trip!”
Flint, very like Detroit, is experiencing a resurgence, particularly in hometown pleasure. The town will not be the bustling heart of trade of the ’40s and ’50s, but it surely’s being reformed into one thing new and delightful by the individuals who stay via issues just like the Flint Public Artwork Venture, cultural occasions and new investments.
The Fallout
AutoWorld went to 5 days every week in an effort to shore up attendance numbers. Typically there have been extra staff than guests on some weekdays, resulting in a lower than festive ambiance.
By January 1985, the park closed to common attendance. This closure would show solely short-term, however the park was by no means open full time once more, with lengthy intervals of closure making the positioning much less and fewer of a vacation spot. A number of makes an attempt had been made to reopen the park with new buyers, however none managed to maintain the doorways open full time. It closed for good in 1986 and was knocked down in 1997 to construct extra space for the College of Michigan-Flint campus.
AutoWorld is such a wierd second in American historical past. The one factor I can relate it to is the fictional Ice City within the TV present Parks & Rec that sank a then-teenage Ben Wyatt’s mayoral profession, solely it’s not as humorous when it occurs in actual life. AutoWorld grew to become an emblem of Flint’s decline till the Flint Water Disaster picked up the mantle. It will even be featured in Michael Moore’s Roger and Me, which launched the world to the shitshow that was GM’s actions in Flint.
The Charles H. Mott Basis, the primary philanthropic establishment within the metropolis to at the present time, would lose $50 million on AutoWorld, when all was mentioned and carried out. All organizers, planners and builders later claimed they noticed the failure coming from a mile away. From the Flint Journal:
Basis President William S. White mentioned even earlier than development began, lengthy earlier than the grand opening, he “had a foul feeling” about what the theme park was rising into and he wasn’t alone.
“Lots of people blame (former GM Chairman) Roger Smith for this,” White informed The Journal. “(However) he sat in my workplace and mentioned, ‘It’s not going to work. What can I do to cease it?’’’
White mentioned ultimately, the venture couldn’t be stopped as a result of civic and enterprise leaders had been so dedicated to bringing the thought to life.
“It had a lifetime of its personal,” mentioned White, who grew to become a de facto spokesman for AutoWorld as a result of non-public buyers had been scattered all around the nation. “Folks had been simply bought on this dream.’’
When the dream is over, solely actuality stays. At present, on the previous spot of AutoWorld, stands the William White constructing, paradoxically named for one of many primary architects of the failed theme park. Flint continues to battle with its difficult relationship with automotive historical past. The town wouldn’t exist right this moment with out the auto crops, however the lack of these crops many years later spelled devastation for the area. Flint has the best focus of individuals residing in poverty within the state of Michigan and continuously charges as one of many poorest within the nation. It then got here out that when GM had early indications that Flint’s water was harmful, the automaker was allowed to quietly swap water sources with no testing being carried out on water that was corroding engines. It will be years earlier than officers would take public complaints critically nevertheless, compounding the horror of the Flint Water Disaster and mistrust of GM.
No half-baked rides or eccentric bobble could make up for the lack of the dignity of a residing wage and fundamental requirements like clear water. AutoWorld is now nothing greater than a retro brand on some dusty mugs at the back of a College archive. A becoming finish, to an ill-fitting theme park.
