“I have no interest driving Ford at the sheriff’s office. I won’t do it,” Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson said, according to the Flint Journal. “I have no interest in driving any other vehicle that’s not built in this community.”
UAW Region 1D Director Steve Dawes called the county’s consideration of Ford vehicles “ludicrous.”
The only vehicles GM still builds in Flint are heavy-duty pickups. The automaker used to employ as many as 80,000 people in the city, which was home to the sprawling Buick City manufacturing complex.
The Tahoes that Genesee County is buying for a total of $484,964 are assembled in Arlington, Texas. Two of the county’s nine commissioners voted against the purchase, citing the Tahoe’s higher cost and lower fuel economy in comparison with the Explorer, which is made at a UAW plant in Chicago.