American Axle & Manufacturing, Detroit, announced it will produce a carrier assembly for a major U.S. commercial truck program.


The carrier assembly will be used in a tandem, double-reduction rear axle for heavy-duty vocational, commercial and line-haul application vehicles, beginning in 2009.

AAM is leveraging the legacy knowledge-base and commercial vehicle expertise of its Albion Automotive subsidiary in the United Kingdom and the engineering talent provided at its new Fort Wayne Engineering Center in Indiana for this program. The manufacturing process for this product will employ the company's environmentally friendly two-cut/dry-cut gear generation process to produce gear sets that meet the extreme levels of durability essential for heavy duty applications.

"Quality, reliability, strength and durability are hallmarks of AAM's product portfolio," says AAM Co-Founder, Chairman & CEO Richard E. Dauch. "We are extremely pleased to have been given the opportunity to produce high quality, high performance carrier assembly for one of the world's leading commercial truck manufacturers.

"This new business is AAM's first major venture into commercial trucks in the United States and brings a new product manufactured by AAM to the U.S. market. With this award, we are able to further expand our strategic initiative of increasing our new products penetration into new market segments with new customers."

AAM is a world leader in the manufacture, engineering, design and validation of driveline and drivetrain systems and related components and modules, chassis systems and metal-formed products for trucks, sport utility vehicles, passenger cars and crossover utility vehicles. In addition to locations in the United States (Michigan, New York, Ohio and Indiana), AAM also has offices or facilities in Brazil, China, Germany, India, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Poland, South Korea, Thailand and the United Kingdom.

Certain statements contained in this press release which are not historical facts contain forward-looking information with respect to the Company's plans, projections or future performance, the occurrence of which involves risk and uncertainties that could cause the Company's actual results or plans to differ materially from those expected by the Company which include risk factors described in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.