The US wouldn’t be the country that it is today without manufacturing. This helped build the country’s economy and made the auto industry possible. Once looking down for the count, manufacturing is on the rise again. According to Forbes, 1.1 million jobs came out of manufacturing in just the past eight years.
Despite the recent growth, however, the fallout from manufacturing’s lows still resonate. Factories shut down, warehouses closed shop and many bustling properties turned into abandoned ruins.
With the ebbs and flows of the economy, there are times where a factory has to close down suddenly. Its workers might be in the middle of a project—since production never stops—but they’re forced to drop the task at hand and vacate the premises. The tough part in all this is that many lose their jobs and security as a result.
In the wake of their departure, valuable automobiles get left behind in the dark corners of factories. They may not have even finished making the car yet, even though it stands on a production belt waiting to get final touches. Other times, a car may belong to an employee or visitor of the factory, though in the tumult of the factory’s closing, it gets left behind.
We’ve amassed some of the bleakest photos out there of shut down factories that still have at least one car abandoned that's collecting dust. Whether it’s a car they were going to build or one that already finished, they got forgotten and succumbed to rust alongside the same factories they’re often built in.
20 Bad Days At The De Tomaso
Some factories are so big and bright, it’s hard to imagine they’ll ever decline. That must’ve been the belief of those working at the De Tomaso in Italy. My Car Quest reports that workers abandoned the factory, based in Modena, with the flip of a switch.
Even with incomplete cars on the production line, they had to get up and out of there without a moment’s delay. Not only is it sad to think about the workers and what they had to go through, but it’s hard to accept that these beautiful potentials won't see the light of day—at least outside of this factory.
19 Blue Rover Stuck
This is the Longbridge MG Rover plant found in England. According to the blog My Classic Garage, the factory has minimized production since 2005 and finally called it quits in 2016. In its brighter years, the factory boomed with activity as car after car came off the production line.
The same source notes that 25,000 employees worked here back in the 1980s. Today, it’s completely vacant and devoid of any enterprise. This Blue Rover 75 sits suspended indefinitely on a platform where it remains incomplete. It’s sad to think this car will never get wheels, an engine or even hit the streets.
18 Incomplete Supercar
The frame of this car looks like it would have been something promising. With a sleek exterior, it looks like it would have been a supercar of some sort. According to the site Tom Braddan, it’s part of the leftovers belonging to the De Tomaso factory.
It’s a factory that churned out luxury cars such as Vallelunga, Pantera, and Mangusta. The factory, along with this potential car, is now rotting away with little hope of revival. With cabling coiled around the side, pieces of roofing fallen near the back and an incomplete car sitting in the center of it all, all the elements together make for a sad photo.
17 Orange Trailer
One can find art even in the rubble. This photographer, as the site Pierre Pichot details, captured this scene in a factory found in Romania. This abandoned factory is no different from the rest—they tend to attract darkness, contain broken rubble and the roofing is barely holding on.
What makes this location unique is the orange vehicle left behind, which looks like the end of a truck or tanker. It’s even tipping up slightly and reflects the fragile state of the building as a whole. Its orange color stands out from everything else in the photo that’s dark, gray and lurking in shadow.
16 Old Mercedes-Benz
Even though it looks like someone set up a light for a photoshoot and posed behind the wheel, this Mercedes-Benz appears to have been sitting here. In the darkness of a factory, located in Hamilton, Ontario according to Reddit user mister_sparky, this Mercedes lay in wait.
With a torn off hood, the parts sit exposed gathering dust over the ages. Otherwise, the car looks like it could run and looks devoid of major marks or dents. Then again, it’s going to cost money to haul it out of there without the guarantee it can even run, so it’s a risk to try and save old cars like this.
15 Longbridge Factory
This photo shows a car that’s not even close to completion, yet it sits frozen on the factory floor. Metro reports that due to the MG Rover factory becoming abandoned, the chances of this car finishing are slim to none. It’s as if workers were manning the production line, heard a red alert siren that signaled the factory’s closure and left immediately.
They didn’t even hesitate to depart or question whether they should put any final touches on the car. It might have even been too much work to actually remove it from the production line considering the factory didn't prepare for such scenarios.
14 Artistic Sedan
When major properties become abandoned, they attract all kinds of behavior. Careless trespassers come along to do whatever they want. This abandoned site is full of graffiti. Not only are the walls painted, but the cracks and crevices of what remains of the building is full of discarded spray paint cans, reports the blog Please, No Flash Photography.
This car that got left in the dust also bears the marks of vandals, sporting a coat of spray paint that helps it blend in with its surroundings. It’s not clear how the car got here, but the end of its story is predictable: it’s not going anywhere soon.
13 Detroit
This is one of those sad moments captured that somehow summons up beauty. In a scene captured by Jessica Ehrler, as per the Detroit Institute of Arts, no photo better sums up the state of Detroit's car industry. Once burgeoning, it now stands on the brink, with factories closed.
The situation was so bad, cars mid-production still sit on the factory floors. This car looks too rusty to ever operate again, plus its hood curled up and it’s missing a door and tires. Although strange, finding a car like this in an abandoned factory is more common than one would expect.
12 Discarded White Car
Many will wonder how cars get left behind in old abandoned factories. Since a car is valuable, they find it hard to imagine ever leaving a car like this one, discarded to waste away. One can’t judge though unless they consider the possible circumstances surrounding this car that's bent out of shape. It might be more trouble than it’s worth at the time to remove a car from the premises.
Perhaps the keys are missing and it’s too much trouble getting a tow truck to get it out. Whatever the circumstances, this car got neglected and now belongs to nature and taggers.
11 Berlin Factory
Something tells us this isn’t the original car’s paint job. Sarcasm aside, this car has permanently become part of the surrounding crude walls of art. These walls once belonged to a busy factory in Berlin, according to Flickr user John Graham.
The front wheels and tires appear stripped, the hood is partly peeled away, and the windows are all shattered. For a car to become ruined like this could only have been the result of leaving it behind. Without a home, the ruins of this factory swallowed up the car and have made it into a destination for brave explorers.
10 New York City
Cars crop up in the strangest of places. One wonders how a car like this got in the position that it’s in. Unless a company comes in to knock the building down or renovate, this car will be stuck in this pose forever. Someone took the wheels off it, the windows broke and graffiti artists went to town.
At least they found a way to incorporate it into their artistic mural that extends to the walls behind it as well. According to Abandoned NYC, this abandoned factory is in New York City. With rubble lying around and premises open to trespassers, it’s not the safest place to be.
9 Kansas City
This factory floor looks dinghy and dark, reflecting the state of these would-be trucks. This is an abandoned site in Kansas City, according to Reddit user Got_wake, where the front grilles, hoods, and half-assembled trucks reside. Sitting on the floor, one can make out small pieces of rubble and trash left behind in the abandonment.
Many of these trucks and their parts still look like they’re in pristine condition aside from the thick layer of dust. There’s still hope for someone to revive them and make something useful out of these trucks. Until then, they’ll continue to waste away in this dimly lit factory.
8 On The Fritz
This car looks the worse for wear sitting in a private workshop of what appears to be a factory. Its hood is up, the tires are flat and it’s covered in dirt, grime, and dust. Sitting atop the roof is a wooden board with a funnel, suggesting some work was being done on the car shortly before workers abandoned it.
The entire workshop has equipment strewn on the floor with wooden boards and rubble scattered around the car. It’s unlikely this car will ever run again due to the surroundings and what it would take to restore it back to its former glory.
7 Tagged Truck
Many plants sit untouched for 70 years or more. Take this one, for example, which is the well-known Packard Automotive Plant in the “Motor City” of Detroit, Michigan. The blog Bikes, Books & A Little Music reports that it closed up shop during the ‘50s and remains mostly undisturbed.
This enormous tow truck, while the victim of taggers, still remains abandoned where it stands. While the new paint job lacks the professional touch, it adds flair to the gloomy environment. In reality, though, the bright colors can’t cover up the sad state of the factory and this truck that’s been long forgotten.
6 DeLorean
The DeLorean is an oddity in the automobile world. It’s not the best quality car around, but the DeLorean’s style has elevated its stature among enthusiasts. This photo reveals one of the building sites in Columbus, Ohio, where Hemmings reports, a decline in business led to its abandonment.
As one can see, there’s hardly a car remaining in the scramble of leaving the warehouse, with only the frame remaining. In the background, even more pieces of the cars remain. Left to fend for itself is this piece of a DeLorean that will never have its own engine, transmission, wheels—or even a flux capacitor—to get it running.
5 UK Factory
There’s not too much information about this abandoned car. A blog appropriately titled Destroyed and Abandoned confirms the abandoned factory resides in the United Kingdom. The paint on the walls appears peeled away, revealing the brick and stone of a crumbling building. Chunks of the roof are lying in the soil where the floor was, while moss creeps around the walls from the surrounding wilderness.
The car’s green is not its original color. Somehow the elements have taken over not just this abandoned property, but the car as well. Beyond the color and some neglect, the car looks like it’s in decent condition.
4 Vibrant Cars
Unibody car frames sit in a decrepit factory. The factory floor isn’t in the best condition, showing age on its floors, walls, and roof. They come in all sorts of colors, from orange to yellow to green to silver.
Lined up one by one, the frames look dreary, waiting for the day they’ll get their own parts and chance to roll out of this dinghy factory. The black one in the center is the furthest along, though it didn’t quite make it out the factory door in time. It’s not clear how long these have been sitting here, though they generally look in good shape.
3 Packard Auto Plant
This snapshot is technically taken just outside of a factory. The grounds surrounding the famous Packard Automobile Plant in Detroit is just as gloomy as the inside. As the blog The Long Fence points out, most abandoned properties have fences to keep trespassers out, but the Packard factory is different.
These buildings cover a wide expanse and are totally empty. A car did manage to get outside of the factory’s walls, but it sits turned upside down and tagged all over. Perhaps someone tried to get away with it in the days when it closed but could only get it this far.
2 Sauerland
This factory looks like it has not been in use for some time. The roof is barely holding up with rusty iron bars stretching along the ceiling. A mossy green grass is already sprouting up where a floor once laid; graffiti lines the walls from trespassing vandals.
According to a user on Weasyl, this abandoned factory is in Sauerland, a mountain range located in Germany. Even the graffiti artists tagged the lone vehicle left behind, which has a whole line of vacuum cleaners trailing out behind. It’s an eyesore that will have many wondering what happened to this place as they look on its state of decay.
1 BMW
This warehouse floor may not look like much as it shows signs of neglect. The area is still spacious, yet there’s a whole corner full of junk and neglected boxes. Acting more like a storage facility, one can see cardboard boxes and furniture sitting on the other side of the room.
The most valuable visible piece of all is the BMW sitting on the left side. Still in good condition with a license plate affixed on the front, one can only hope it's not discarded like everything else here. If abandoned, the ride is one of the nicer cars on this list still in top-notch shape.
Sources: Reddit, Hemmings & Flickr