Allison Engineering-Allison Transmission
Written by Bill Bowman
In 1915, in Indianapolis, Indiana, the Indianapolis Speedway Team Company was founded by James A Allison. Changing its name in 1918 to the Allison Experimental Company, the company contributed to the United States buildup to fight World War I. In 1909, James Allison started the Indianapolis 500 race to prove the automobile components they manufactured. Now known as the Allison Engineering Company, Allison produced bearings for the Liberty aircraft engine.
In 1928, the Allison Engineering Company lost its founder, Jim Allison, and the company was put up for sale. General Motors purchased the company for $592,000 in 1929. With the purchase, Allison Engineering Company became part of the GM family, and was renamed Allison Division of General Motors in 1934. It produced the famed Liberty aircraft engine during World War I and turned out more than 70,000 engines for U.S. fighter planes during World War II.
For some 30 years, Allison was in gas turbine and aircraft operations. In 1937, it produced the world’s first aircraft engine to achieve a normal rating of 1,000 hp. It began transmission production in 1946. In 1973, Allison was merged with Detroit Diesel, forming the Detroit Diesel Allison Division. The gas turbine and aircraft operations were spun off into a separate division called the Allison Gas Turbine Division in 1983.
Detroit Diesel was sold to Roger Penske in 1987, at which time Allison Transmission Division was born. In 1992, GM negotiated to sell the Allison operation to ZF Friedrichshafen AG of Germany, but the agreement was nullified when the U.S. Department of Justice filed a suit to block that sale.
The Allison Gas Turbine Division was sold to a Wall Street investment firm in 1993, which sold it to England’s Rolls-Royce Aerospace in 1994.
On June 28, 2007, GM announced that it was selling its Allison unit to private equity firms The Carlyle Group and Onex Corporation, in a deal valued at $5.6 billion. The transaction closed on August 7, 2007. GM retained the Baltimore plant, which produces the 1000 Series transmission used in GM medium duty trucks.
Allison Transmission developed the hybrid electric technology that General Motors will use in the forthcoming hybrid-drive vehicles, and is incorporated in hybrid propulsion systems for buses primarily assembled by New Flyer Industries and Gillig Corporation.
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