AM General as an automobile maker: the Hummer line, built across the line

1992 — 2016

The company is South Bend's; the plants are Mishawaka's: AM General's corporate record — its formation in 1971 from the Jeep Corporation's General Products Division, its passage through LTV in 1983, its headquarters' move to South Bend in 1986 at 105 North Niles Avenue, and its military truck contracts, including the JLTV A2 award of February 2023 — stands in the Businesses and Military sections. Its production ground is the plant at 13200 McKinley Highway, Mishawaka. This entry is the company's civilian-vehicle record, printed whole, with the Mishawaka seat stated in every line it belongs to, because the distinction is the record: a South Bend company whose automobiles were built in the next city.

The Hummer and the H1: The civilian Hummer — the military HMMWV's road-going twin, whose production the Businesses section dates from 1984 at Mishawaka — opened for civilian sale on 14 March 1992. Three hundred sixteen were built the first year. In December 1999 AM General sold the marketing rights to the Hummer name to General Motors; GM renamed the original vehicle the H1 and kept AM General building it. The H1 ran to June 2006, ended ahead of the 2007 diesel-emissions rules; its final model year was the H1 Alpha, 729 built, and there was no 2005 model year. The marque's annual totals sum to 11,818 H1s across 1992–2006, and the enthusiast ledger's "around 11,700 to 12,000" agrees with the sum at its size.

The H2, and the brand's end: Under the GM arrangement AM General built, in a new plant raised for the work beside the Humvee plant at Mishawaka — the Commercial Assembly Plant — the GM-designed H2, from 2002 to 2009. The marque histories calculate the H2's United States sales at 153,026; the figure is printed as what it is, a sales tally from the marque record, not a plant ledger. The brand itself died at General Motors: a sale of Hummer to China's Tengzhong was attempted in June 2009 and withdrawn, and on 24 February 2010 GM announced the brand's shutdown.

The MV-1: The Mishawaka plant's next civilian vehicle was somebody else's design again. The Vehicle Production Group of Miami had AM General build its MV-1 — the first production vehicle in North America designed from the ground up for wheelchair users, with a deployable ramp under the floor and room for two wheelchairs among six occupants — at the Mishawaka plant, the first rolling off the line on 21 September 2011. Production stopped in February 2013 when VPG defaulted on the fifty-million-dollar Department of Energy loan behind it. AM General then bought the program: it acquired the VPG assets in September 2013, having bought the DOE loan itself for three million dollars, formed a subsidiary, Mobility Ventures, and restarted production on 11 March 2014, at about two thousand vehicles a year, on the same assembly line that was then also building the Mercedes-Benz R-Class for the Chinese market. MV-1 production ended in 2016; the R-Class run at the plant, 2015 to 2017, stands in the Businesses section. In 2017 AM General sold the Commercial Assembly Plant itself — the sale that opens the next entry.

Sources:

1. The Hummer marque record — the H1's production 1992–2006 at Mishawaka and its annual totals summing to 11,818; the first production year at 316; the December 1999 sale of the name's marketing rights to General Motors; the June 2006 ending ahead of the 2007 diesel rules, the H1 Alpha's 729 and the missing 2005 year; the H2 of 2002–2009 and its calculated United States sales of 153,026.
2. The Vehicle Production Group and Mobility Ventures record, including the trade press (WardsAuto, 2016) — the MV-1's first vehicle off the Mishawaka line on 21 September 2011; the February 2013 halt on the DOE loan default; AM General's September 2013 acquisition and the 11 March 2014 restart; production to 2016 on the R-Class line.
3. The Businesses and Military sections of this history — the company's formation, ownership and South Bend headquarters record, the HMMWV's production seat at 13200 McKinley Highway, Mishawaka, and the R-Class contract of 2015–2017.