AN ERA ends as GM plant closes LANSING CAR ASSEMBLY HELPED DEFINE CITY'S ECONOMY After 104 years, Lansing Car Assembly shuts doors Friday AFTER MORE THAN A CENTURY, LANSING CAR ASSEMBLY SHUTS DOWN FRIDAY By Barbara Wieland Lansing State Journal If you were living in Lansing around the turn of the last century, you had a front-row seat to the automotive revolution. By the end of the decade, there are about half a million cars in the United States, according to the Antique Automobile Club of America. 1910s As public demand for automobiles grows through the decade, so does the sprawling Oldsmobile factory nestled near the Grand River and what later became Martin Luther King Jr.