AM General is an American heavy vehicle and contract automotive manufacturer based in South Bend, Indiana.

[5] AM General has also been a provider of vehicles for the CUCV program carried out by the United States Armed Forces.

[6] AM General traces its roots to the Standard Wheel Company of Terre Haute, Indiana, which expanded in 1903 to include the Overland Automotive Division.

[7] In 1908, John North Willys purchased the Overland company, then based in Indianapolis, Indiana, and renamed it Willys-Overland Motors.

In 1941, the U.S. Army awarded a contract to Willys-Overland Motor Company to produce the Willys MB, also known as the Jeep, for the US Infantry.

It then mass-produced that vehicle as "America's first four-wheel-drive, one-fourth-ton, tactical utility truck"—the Jeep of World War II fame.

At the time, Kaiser had been awarded a US$87 million Army truck contract, and under government pressure, agreed to perform the work at the South Bend plant it had recently acquired from Studebaker.

[1] In 1982, American Motors ceased to function as an independent automaker, when Renault purchased a controlling interest.

[14] GM in turn sued boutique automaker Avanti Motor Corporation of Cancun, Mexico after it introduced the Studebaker XUV at the Chicago Auto show in 2002.

[17] In May 2010, Azure Dynamics announced it had chosen AM General to assemble its electric drivetrain for Ford Transit Connect vehicles for the North American market at its Livonia, Michigan, factory.

[18] In September 2013, AM General reached an agreement to purchase the United States Department of Energy's secured loan to the Vehicle Production Group (VPG).

[citation needed] In July 2020, investment company KPS Capital Partners acquired AM General from its previous owner, MacAndrews & Forbes.

[3][22] AM General submitted a prototype to become the United States Postal Service's Next Generation Delivery Vehicle, but their entry was not chosen.

[5] In 1977–1979, AM General worked under a partnership with MAN of Germany to build SG 220 articulated buses for US transit systems.

In March 1983, AM General won an initial $1.2 billion contract to produce 55,000 Humvees, to be delivered in five basic models and 15 different configurations over a five-year period.

Humvees feature full-time four-wheel drive, an independent suspension, steep approach and departure angles, 60-percent grade ability and 16 inches (406 mm) of ground clearance.

The Humvee's replacement, a completely new Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) design, has been in production by Oshkosh Corporation since 2016.

[27] AM General was unsuccessful in its bid for this $30-billion 25-year contract, and it is now focused on military Humvee support (they still outnumber JLTVs by three to one) and development of a new ambulance model.