The plant was operated by the US Army for a number of years and was purchased by Volkswagen of America in 1980.

In 1983, the plant was sold to Chrysler to produce the Dodge Shadow and Plymouth Sundance.

After the plant was modernized in 2006, the assembly line and tooling for the outgoing Stratus and Sebring were sold to OAO GAZ and shipped to that company's factory in Nizhny Novgorod in Russia.

A decision of the Chrysler board to make the new 200 model allowed it to bring new life into the plant and saved it from being closed.

[6] When the Chrysler 200 was discontinued in December 2016, FCA announced that the Sterling Heights facility would receive a $1.49 billion investment to retool so it can build the next-generation Ram 1500 pickup, which will be transferred from the Warren Truck Assembly so that it can build the all-new, full size Jeep Wagoneer with a planned launch in 2018.