General Dynamics Wins $562 Million Mobility Vehicle Contract

General Dynamics has won a contract of U.S. Ground Mobility Vehicle 1.1 (GMV) program estimated at about $562 million.

The U.S. special ops command (SOCOM) has said that it wants to buy 1,297 GMVs to replace the current 1,072 Humvee-based GMVs it has in its inventory.

Back in May, SOCOM had already planned to spend about $24 million on the program in fiscal 2014 for the first 101 vehicles, at a price tag of at $245,000 per vehicle, according to Defense News.

Barring any protests, the loss will come as a bitter pill for current GMV-maker AM General and Navistar International, companies who are looking for more business at a time when the buys of Humvees and MRAPs have ended. Oshkosh Defense was eliminated from the competition in January, after which it filed a protest which was then withdrawn in April.

Requirements documents released last year said that the GMV would have to weigh less than 7,000 pounds, have the ability to carry up to seven passengers and be transportable in an M/CH-47 Chinook helicopter.

In today’s notice about the award, the government said that it plans on spending about $14 million in already allocated fiscal 2012 and 2013 budgets for research, test and evaluation on the GMV.

The final deliveries of all GMVs are expected to be complete by September 2020.