AM General is formed

1969 – 1971

The sale announced: On 2 December 1969, at the Detroit Hilton, AMC chairman Roy D. Chapin Jr. announced the agreement to buy the Kaiser Jeep Corporation from Kaiser Industries. American Motors stockholders approved overwhelmingly on 4 February 1970 — 10,695,335 shares for, 297,242 against. The purchase included the Toledo facility, the 1.4-million-square-foot Chippewa Main Plant and the adjacent Plant 8 in South Bend, a stamping plant in Indianapolis, and, in the specialist account's words, "a recently acquired 300,000-square foot plant in Mishawaka, a short distance from South Bend."

The General Products Division: On 11 February 1970 American Motors announced a new division to take over the Defense and Government Products operations: the General Products Division of American Motors, headed by Cruse W. Moss, who had run the same business for Kaiser-Jeep. Kaiser-Jeep novated to AMC contracts worth $212 million, including 13,066 five-ton M809-series trucks and the 2½-ton M35A2 series, then in production at Chippewa. Postal DJ-5 Jeeps were built in Plant 8 next door. In its first full fiscal year the business did $261 million in sales — a quarter of all American Motors.

The incorporation: American Motors then made the division a company of its own. The specialist account, working from the contemporary announcements, dates it precisely: the wholly owned subsidiary took over the division's assets and operations on 31 March 1971, having been incorporated in Delaware five days earlier; the Detroit Free Press announcement of 2 April 1971 named it AM General Corporation, with Chapin, AMC president William V. Luneburg, and John C. Secrest as directors and Cruse W. Moss as president. Some company histories give the incorporation as 1 April 1971; the two datings are printed as they stand, a day apart on the same act. Chapin's stated purpose was "to increase the flexibility and autonomy of the former General Products Division in meeting government contracting requirements and also in seeking diversification into new types of vehicles." The diversification came first, and it came to Mishawaka: city buses.

Sources:

1. Military Trader (Doyle), "The Birth of AM General" — the 2 December 1969 announcement, the 4 February 1970 stockholder vote and tally, the plants included in the purchase, the 11 February 1970 division announcement, the $212 million novated contracts, the 31 March 1971 subsidiary transfer and Delaware incorporation, the 2 April 1971 Detroit Free Press announcement, fiscal 1971 sales of $261 million.
2. Danish Army Vehicles, history of AM General — the 1 April 1971 incorporation dating.