The last one out gets the cardboard sign!

If you're a car looking for celebrity attention, it's clearly better to be the first one off the assembly line than the last.

Submitted here as evidence is the Chevy Cruze, produced at General Motors' Lordstown, Ohio, plant.

When it launched in the U.S. in 2010 as GM's answer to Japan's dominant small cars, then-North American boss Mark Reuss and then-Gov. Ted Strickland were at the plant to usher the first one out, a sign of the high hopes vested in the car, and the small-car factory, in the aftermath of GM's bankruptcy.

While the Cruze was an early success and a popular model globally, those hopes didn't fully pan out. As the factory run neared its end, a video posted on social media showed the last car making its way through early production stages, with a hand-scrawled cardboard sign in its rear window that read: "THE LAST CRUZE."

Later photos showed the same vehicle painted white, with an American flag draped over its hood and a new cardboard marker on the front, complete with sad face.

Lordstown was the first of five North American plants scheduled to end production as part of a restructuring GM announced in November. While its small-car infrastructure dims its chances for revival, its ultimate fate will be decided in labor negotiations beginning this summer.