Drive about 45 minutes southeast of downtown Pittsburgh, out to the edge of Westmoreland County, and you’ll reach a sprawling, cavernous factory whose history shadows the ebb and flow of technology trends and American manufacturing.

In the late 1960s, Chrysler, fresh off the American muscle car wave, started building the plant, but as the seventies approached and the price of oil rose, it suspended construction without making a single car. Fast forward a decade and German car company Volkswagen stepped in — rolling the boxy Rabbit off the line — but that era was hit with a lethal combo of worker unrest, awkward car designs and dropping oil prices that took the sheen off Volkswagen’s small-car edge.

The 2.3-million-square-foot factory in Westmoreland County, PA. Image courtesy of Katie Fehrenbacher, Gigaom.

In the nineties, it was Japanese giant Sony’s turn and the company used the site to make…