In late September, Ford Motor Co. executives and local politicians gathered to celebrate the formal announcement of the automaker’s $5.6 billion plant at the Megasite of West Tennessee in Haywood County.

As Ford president and CEO Jim Farley spoke about the all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup trucks the plant will manufacture, he reached for a geographically apropos analogy:

“They’re as smooth as Tennessee whiskey.”

The process that precedes landing a huge automaker, however, is not always so smooth. Leaders from other Mid-South communities pursuing auto plants were met with large pours of cynicism, although they did raise their glasses and toast in the end.

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Today, we start a special, subscriber-only Daily Memphian project looking at the partnerships between communities and auto manufacturers that predate Ford and the Megasite of West Tennessee.

Our journalists visited Chattanooga (home to Volkswagen), Spring Hill, Tennessee (home to General Motors), and Tupelo, Mississippi (Toyota located in nearby Blue Springs).

The project kicks off with a story about an already-revitalized Chattanooga attracting Volkswagen after being told no by Toyota a year earlier. Longtime Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey was a central figure in Chattanooga ultimately landing VW, but not before the third-generation strawberry farmer was portrayed in a cartoon romping around a strawberry patch at the proposed site.

Despite the arrows shot his way, Ramsey and others held fast and eventually won the day.

David Rumbarger, president and CEO of the Community Development Foundation in Tupelo, recalls that the name for their pursuit — the “Wellspring Project” — was mocked by morning radio hosts, who dubbed it the “Wishing Well Project.”

State drops ‘Memphis’ from Megasite name

Spring Hill’s auto plant opened in 1990 under the Saturn brand, promoted as a “different kind of car company.”

Saturn eventually would dissolve and today GM, like other big automakers, is pivoting. At Spring Hill, GM is expanding the 31-year-old factory and positioning for the EV (electric vehicle) age in an effort to “ride the market,” said Jeffrey LaMarche, who is the plant’s executive director.

Of course, all of these projects involved incentives provided to the automakers — though none as rich as the $884 million for Ford’s Blue Oval City that Tennessee lawmakers approved. This Daily Memphian project includes a story that takes a deep dive into the debate over the practicality, ethics, and potential competitive edge of such inducements.

Among the other stories in the package, we explore the suddenly red-hot real estate market in and around Haywood County; consider the expected influx of suppliers that will mean additional jobs and revenue; discuss the critical importance of a highly trained workforce as well as the United Auto Workers’ efforts to organize in Blue Oval City; and, finally, we visit about the only thing in tiny Stanton, Tennessee: a family-owned restaurant. 

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