Photo: GM
In the summer of this year, the U.S. Army Contracting Command announced GM Defense would be the company in charge of making the next Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) for the military. Now that we are ready to step into the new year, the American behemoth announced it started getting ready the facility where these vehicles will be made.
The place selected for this is an existing GM building in Concord, North Carolina. The facility there is 75,000-square-foot large and should start rolling out ISVs as soon as April next year. For the record, GM already delivered the first one in October, and will have to make 649 of them as per the contract, with the option of taking that number to a total of 2,065 vehicles over the next eight years.
“We have tremendous momentum behind our ISV win, featuring a first-of-its-kind tactical wheeled vehicle that gives our Soldiers speed, durability and performance to enhance mission success,” said in a statement Tim Herrick, interim president of GM Defense.
“GM Defense is responsible for the design, engineering and manufacturing of the ISV. This facility will enable us to meet our customer’s timeline for delivery while continuing our journey to bring commercial technologies and transformative mobility solutions to the defense market.”
The infantry vehicle GM is making is based on the 2020 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2. It can carry an infantry squad of nine and has been specced light enough to be suitable for transport on UH-60 Blackhawk or CH-47 Chinook helicopters.
Powering this bad boy is a 2.8-liter Duramax diesel engine linked to a six-speed automatic transmission. The powerplant develops 186 horsepower, the same as on the civilian version.
The contract GM was awarded for this is worth $214.3 million, which would make each vehicle come in at about $100,000, more than double the price of the full-bodied version available for us regular Joes.
“We have tremendous momentum behind our ISV win, featuring a first-of-its-kind tactical wheeled vehicle that gives our Soldiers speed, durability and performance to enhance mission success,” said in a statement Tim Herrick, interim president of GM Defense.
“GM Defense is responsible for the design, engineering and manufacturing of the ISV. This facility will enable us to meet our customer’s timeline for delivery while continuing our journey to bring commercial technologies and transformative mobility solutions to the defense market.”
The infantry vehicle GM is making is based on the 2020 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2. It can carry an infantry squad of nine and has been specced light enough to be suitable for transport on UH-60 Blackhawk or CH-47 Chinook helicopters.
Powering this bad boy is a 2.8-liter Duramax diesel engine linked to a six-speed automatic transmission. The powerplant develops 186 horsepower, the same as on the civilian version.
The contract GM was awarded for this is worth $214.3 million, which would make each vehicle come in at about $100,000, more than double the price of the full-bodied version available for us regular Joes.
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