As the Evening Times reported on 25th April 2012: "THE industrial heart was ripped out of East Kilbride the day production stopped at the town's Motorola site.

It was the place where, for four decades, microchips had been manufactured for the world's leading car makers.

And today workmen are ripping the insides out of the South Lanarkshire plant's production area as part of a multi-million pound blueprint to breathe new life into the sprawling 25-acre site.

Scrap metal is piled high as water tanks and shelves are cleared.

The scene is a sad reminder of better days when Motorola at its peak had employed more than 2500 workers in the town.

It had been a cornerstone of Silicon Glen which had been created to rival California's Silicon Valley.

Motorola brought American technology to East Kilbride in 1969 and with it much-needed jobs.

Expansion at the plant was almost never-ending as millions of computer chips were developed to run car management and airbag systems for most of the world's top- selling models.

The American owners were more than happy with their Scottish workforce and rewarded them in 1994 with a £250m expansion programme - one of the UK's biggest involving foreign investment.

But Motorola began hitting the skids. Executives were accused of taking their eye off the ball by failing to develop more innovative products and they and their Scottish workers paid a hefty price.

Rivals moved ahead of Motorola on a number of fronts. Global sales of Motorola mobile phones dropped dramatically and in 2001 the US giant axed its manufacturing site at Bathgate, West Lothian, with the loss of 3100 jobs.

We take a look back at the site's glory days in our picture gallery above.