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GM will spend $33 million to upgrade local engine line

By Matt Glynn

June 17, 2011

 General Motors will invest about $33 million in its Town of Tonawanda engine plant to upgrade an existing engine line.

GM and United Auto Workers leaders have scheduled a news conference with local elected officials for this morning to make a “positive investment announcement,” but they did not provide details.

The investment will be used to upgrade equipment on the plant’s L-850 four-cylinder engine line, according to a source who asked not to be identified. Whether the investment will result in new jobs was not clear.

GM will make its announcement shortly before hosting public tours of the plant, which will be offered from noon to 8 p. m. It’s the first time in several years the plant has held such a large-scale open house.

The latest investment is yet another sign of GM’s confidence in the massive engine-making facility on River Road, an important source of manufacturing jobs in the region.

The Tonawanda plant is already preparing for two new engine lines that will generate vital new sources of work and raise the job count at the facility. The announcements of those two engines, which are valued at a combined $825 million, came in 2010.

The plant, which currently has about 800 hourly and salaried workers, will start making a new Ecotec engine in June 2012 and is scheduled to start making a “Generation V” small-block V-8 in March 2013.

Plant managers recently unveiled a series of “flying robots,” machines that travel on elevated rails, that will be used to make the new engines. The robots can be changed rapidly for different work.

mglynn@buffnews.com