Humvee / HMMWV

The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV or Humvee) is a military 4WD motor vehicle created by AM General. It has largely supplanted the roles formerly served by the M151 1/4 ton MUTT, the M561 "Gama Goat", their M718A1 and M792 ambulance versions, the CUCV, and other light trucks with the United States military, as well as being used by a number of other countries and organizations. In the 1970s, the United States Army concluded that the militarized civilian trucks in use no longer satisfied their requirements. In 1977, Lamborghini developed the Cheetah model in attempt to meet the Army contract specifications. In 1979, the Army drafted final specifications for a High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or HMMWV. In July of that year, AM General (a subsidiary of American Motors Corporation) began preliminary design work, and less than a year later, the first prototype, the M998, was in testing. In June 1981, the Army awarded AM General a contract for development of several more prototype vehicles to be delivered to the U.S. government for another series of tests, and the company was later awarded the initial production contract for 55,000 HMMWVs to be delivered in 1985. HMMWVs first saw combat in Operation Just Cause, the US invasion of Panama in 1989. The HMMWV has become the vehicular backbone of U.S. forces around the world. Over 10,000 were employed by coalition forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom, the 2003 invasion of Iraq.