Mobile Suit construction timeline

[Mafty]

Just how long does it take to build a Mobile Suit anyway? We see units being sent to the front line, and over the course of a year long war there are numerous new designs. is it ever said in show (or on a model kit package ) how long a suit takes to be designed and built?

[Dark Duel]

The only thing like that I've personally ever seen was a timeline that used to be on the old GundamOfficial site way back in the day, which IIRC referred to "Project V", the development program for the Gundam/Guntank/Guncannon, as having started in April or May 0079. IIRC, the first episode of Mobile Suit Gundam takes place in September, which would give us a time frame of around 4-5 months from development to construction and rollout.

IIRC, the GMs entered production after a much shorter period following the first deployment of the Gundam, which would indicate to me that development was already under way for the GM even while Project V's prototypes were being built.

[Seto Kaiba]

Just how long does it take to build a Mobile Suit anyway? We see units being sent to the front line, and over the course of a year long war there are numerous new designs. is it ever said in show (or on a model kit package ) how long a suit takes to be designed and built?

There's a lot of variation there... due in no small part to how much new and untested technology is going into said Mobile Suit.

According to Master Archive Mobile Suit: MS-06 Zaku II, the Principality of Zeon's Mobile Suit program began in UC 0069 not long after Degwin Zabi declared the establishment of the Principality. Building on existing robot designs and technology, they had a proof of concept design a bit over four years later in October UC 0073 (the ZI-AX3). Four months and change after that in early UC 0074, they had their first workable prototype version of the MS-05 Zaku I, and the initial trial production MS-05 Zaku I units rolled out about three months later. So, all told, the development of the first practical mobile suit took about four and a half years from commencement to delivery of the first unit.

The Earth Federation was able to fast-track their own Mobile Suits into production thanks to data covertly obtained from Zeon's own Mobile Suit program, and went from project commencement to rollout of a first viable prototype in around a year and four months.

For others, the circumstances vary wildly. Some were in development for years, while others were improv units that were smashed together in a few months.