In 1981 Northrop Grumman purchased a former Ford Motor Company car factory in Pico Rivera, built in the late 1950s, to be the primary production site for the B-2 stealth bomber’s components. The refurbished, secure, and windowless Northrop Grumman plant opened in 1982, and in a few years more than 12,000 people were employed in B-2 production, here and in Palmdale. Ultimately, only 21 of the planes were made, at a final cost of more than two billion dollars each. The plant closed in the late 1990s and was torn down in 2001, and the site was turned into a shopping center and office park. Northrop Grumman is now building the replacement for the B-2, the B-21, in Palmdale.