Vance: The German Invasion of Alabama

In nineteen ninety-three, Mercedes-Benz stunned the automotive world by choosing a small Tuscaloosa County farming community called Vance as the site of its first passenger-vehicle factory outside of Germany. Alabama beat out thirty other states in a seven-month courtship the company called Project Rosewood, offering roughly two hundred fifty million dollars in incentives to land the deal.

The plant broke ground and began rolling out its first vehicle, an M-Class S-U-V, in February of nineteen ninety-seven. What followed was a transformation of the Alabama economy. Vance became the anchor of a corridor that now includes Honda in Lincoln and Hyundai in Montgomery, turning a state once known solely for textiles and timber into one of the top auto-producing states in the country. By two thousand twenty-six, the plant had built more than five million vehicles and Mercedes committed four billion dollars to expand it further.