The plant remade for the Humvee

1984 – 1985

The two tellings: What happened on McKinley Highway in 1984 is told two ways, and both are printed. The standard reference works say AM General built a factory for the Humvee: the encyclopedia history records that in 1984 the company built a plant at 13200 McKinley Highway in Mishawaka for HMMWV production, and the Hummer production-facilities lists carry the works as a 500,000-square-foot plant opened in 1984. The specialist record shows the ground was older: the Rockwell-built components plant Kaiser-Jeep had taken for truck beds in 1969 and AM General had converted to bus assembly in 1974 stood on the site, and the company's own photographic history states that the building was converted — first to buses, and later to HMMWVs. The reconciliation the record supports is a conversion and expansion of an existing works in 1984, not a green field; the two tellings are carried here at their strengths, the reference works' "built" and the specialist record's "converted," without merging them.

Production begins: The start of production is likewise carried two ways. The company and encyclopedia narrative puts production beginning at the Mishawaka plant in the fall of 1984, with first deliveries to the Army in early 1985. The Humvee reference's production line reads "Produced 2 January 1985 – present," while its text says production "kicked off in April 1984" — a third dating, of pre-production or pilot build, printed as it stands. What is not in dispute is the shape of the ramp: a five-year, 55,000-vehicle contract worked in a converted building by a company that had never before produced a vehicle of its own design in quantity.

The works as they settled: The plant at 13200 McKinley Highway, Mishawaka, Indiana 46545, became Plant 1 of what the company now calls the Mishawaka Manufacturing Campus. The Hummer-era facilities lists carry the military plant at 500,000 square feet (about 46,000 square metres), and the campus as a whole is carried in current Army and company releases at 96 acres, with an on-site test track beside the plants. The growth from the 300,000-square-foot building of 1970 to that campus is the physical form of the Humvee contract.

Sources:

1. AM General reference history (encyclopedia) — the 1984 plant at 13200 McKinley Highway, production from the fall of 1984, first deliveries early 1985.
2. Hummer production-facilities lists — the 500,000-square-foot plant "opened 1984."
3. Humvee reference (production data) — "Produced 2 January 1985 – present"; production "kicked off in April 1984."
4. Military Trader (Doyle), "The Birth of AM General" — the building's conversion from buses to HMMWVs.
5. U.S. Army / AM General JLTV releases, 2023 — the 96-acre Mishawaka Manufacturing Campus and its test track.