Of Deserts Coyotes and Rattle Snakes

General Motors officially opens its new Desert Proving Ground in Yuma

GM Desert Proving Ground

At LotPro.com we did some digging around and discovered that General Motors opened its Desert Proving Ground in Mesa, Arizona in April 1953. Although the company already had a much larger Proving Ground in Milford, Michigan that it had opened in 1924 as the auto industry’s first dedicated testing facility, the hot, dry Arizona weather enabled GM to test vehicles in weather and road conditions that were unavailable in southeastern Michigan.

Harley Earl with the Firebirds in Arizona

In addition to the dry climate, nearby Williams Air Force Base also made it difficult for civilian airplanes to fly in the nearby area, which “happened” to include the test track, without a special clearance. At its peak, the proving ground was home to more than 1,000 GM employees.

But things began to change rapidly in the 80’s and 90’s, and what once had been a very rural area southeast of Phoenix was rapidly becoming one of the fastest-growing suburbs in the Southwest. In 1993, Williams Air Force Base closed and in 2000, General Motors announced that it was closing the Mesa complex and would be relocating its hot weather vehicle testing facility. GM sold a portion of the site in 2004 and the remainder in 2006 with the provision that it could lease the property back until the end of this year.

GM moves from Mesa to Yuma

Today, General Motors and the U.S. Army officially opened the company’s newest test facility on the Army’s Yuma Proving Ground, located in, naturally, Yuma, Arizona in the southwest corner of the state.

The ceremony today marked the end of most of the additional construction required to build the infrastructure required for a modern automotive testing facility on a portion of the government proving ground that GM is leasing.

“This new facility meets several of our important product development needs,” said Ken Morris, executive director, Vehicle Integration, Proving Grounds and Performance Division. “We have a longer hot weather testing cycle, we have great partners with the Army and the city of Yuma, and we have a facility that will meet our needs in the years to come.”

Just the facts

Here is how GM describes the new Yuma Proving Ground:

The new facility will employ 75 engineers, technicians, and support staff, have 40 miles of roads, and cover 2400 acres of property on the Yuma site. The bulk of the work with be hot weather related testing, powertrain, ride and handling, and other vehicle development activities. Yuma has proved to be a perfect fit for GMs needs with a longer hot weather season than the Mesa area, relatively isolated and secure from photographers looking to get shots of the latest models being tested, and excellent support capabilities from the Yuma community.

The Yuma facility includes:

* 3.5 mile Circle Track (3 lanes)
* 1.4 mile Straight Track (2-3 lanes)
* 3.1 mile Ride Road (2-4 lanes)
* 1,000’ X 1,000’ Dynamics Pad
* Interior Noise Road
* Noise Pass-by Facility
* Misc. Grades

Other interesting facts:

* Located on the US Army military proving ground and artillery range
* 2400 acre site
* 24 acre building campus
* 98,000 sq/ft of building area
* 12 miles of perimeter security fencing
* 8 archeological sites
* 87 lane miles of 12 ft test tracks & roads using ~110,000 tons of asphalt and 4,000 cubic yards of concrete
* Almost 2,700 linear feet of concrete arch culverts were built using over 8,000 cubic yards of concrete.
* Saguaro Cactus, wild burros, coyotes, wild bees & rattle snakes

Yuma’s Avg. Rainfall 3.25”; Summer Temp. 109/81 F; Winter Temp. 69/46 F

Images courtesy of General Motors