GM Defense lands nearly $700 million for ISV design changes

GM Defense won a $697.7 million modification to its Infantry Squad Vehicle contract with the U.S. Army, funding engineering changes to the vehicle’s five-seat cargo variant, the Department of War announced Sept. 21. The modification, designated P00053, brings the total value of the underlying contract to $915.6 million.

The Warren, Michigan-based company was the only bidder on the modification. The Army Contracting Command-Detroit Arsenal in Michigan managed the award. Work locations and funding will be set order by order, with an estimated completion date of June 25, 2028. The Army has not disclosed how many vehicles or kits the engineering work covers, or whether the changes apply to vehicles already fielded, future production, or both.

The Infantry Squad Vehicle entered Army service in 2020 as a nine-seat troop carrier built to move an infantry squad quickly across rough terrain. It is based on the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 midsize truck and uses roughly 90 percent commercial off-the-shelf parts, including Multimatic dampers and other Chevrolet Performance components. The vehicle weighs about 4,930 pounds (2,236 kg), carries a payload of 3,200 pounds (1,451 kg), and runs on a 2.8-liter Duramax turbo-diesel engine paired with a six-speed automatic transmission. It is light enough to be sling-loaded under a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and compact enough to fit inside a CH-47 Chinook.

This modification covers the Infantry Squad Vehicle Utility, a newer five-seat version with a rear cargo bed in place of extra passenger seats. GM Defense has said the Army intends to eventually field more Utility-variant vehicles than the original nine-seat troop carrier, a shift the company has attributed to feedback from the Army’s Transforming in Contact initiative. The Utility variant is built to support logistics runs, fire support, command-and-control posts, electronic warfare equipment, and counter-drone systems.

GM Defense first won the Infantry Squad Vehicle production contract in June 2020, beating competing bids from Oshkosh Defense and a Science Applications International Corporation and Polaris team. That initial award was worth $214.3 million for 649 vehicles, part of an Army objective covering up to 2,065 Infantry Squad Vehicles across variants. The Army approved full-rate production for the program in April 2023.

Orders under the contract have continued since then. The Army awarded GM Defense roughly $44.8 million in February 2025 for additional vehicles. In March 2026, the company received an order worth about $458.4 million covering 121 Utility-variant vehicles along with anti-lock brake and electronic stability control kits. A separate contract announced in June 2026 added $142,985,392 for more Infantry Squad Vehicles and winch kits, bringing that agreement’s cumulative value to $623,769,043.

General Motors CEO Mary Barra told investors during the company’s second-quarter 2026 earnings call that GM Defense’s revenue is on pace to approach $700 million for the year and that the unit expects Infantry Squad Vehicle awards in 2026 to exceed $1 billion. GM Defense, relaunched by General Motors in 2017, has built its military vehicle business almost entirely around the Infantry Squad Vehicle family since winning the original Army contract.

The vehicle family now includes several configurations beyond the original troop carrier and the Utility variant covered by this week’s modification, among them a two-seat cargo version with a larger flatbed and a heavy gun carrier fitted with a turret ring for a machine gun.

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