[5] In December 1994, London Underground announced that GEC Alsthom (later Alstom) had won the £700 million contract.

[5] In April 1995, a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deal worth £400m was signed between London Underground and Alstom to provide 106 six-car trains.

[8] Construction began in 1996, with one car going on public display as part of the Lord Mayor's Show on 9 November 1996.

[10][8] Starting in 2013, the 1995 Stock underwent refurbishment, more than a decade after the last trains of this type entered service.

Internally, new flooring was fitted, with contrasting colours in the doorways, and the yellow grab rails were re-painted dark blue.

The new standard London Underground "Barman" moquette was also introduced, and wheelchair backboards were installed in the trailer cars.

[14] The main technical differences arose as 1996 Stock was designed for "cheapest contract cost", while 1995 Stock was designed for "life cycle cost", given Alstom's long term interest in reliability due to their PFI maintenance contract.

The 1995 stock uses Alstom's "Onix" three-phase insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) drive, whereas the 1996 stock uses three-phase induction motors fed from a single-source inverter using a gate turn-off thyristor (GTO), derived from those on Class 465/466 Networker trains.