GM CEO Rick Wagoner promised to reveal the fate of the HUMMER brand today. Old Sparky was warmed-up and everything. Of course, that was before the President of the United States fired Wagoner’s ass. And so the maker of pseudo-military SUVs will spend its eleventh month on death row—sorry, “under strategic review.” Automotive News [sub] reports that GM will now postpone a decision “for a few weeks as it works to complete a sale.” No, they don’t mean “a” sale; they mean the sale of the entire brand. Wait! Does that mean . . . ?
“Our efforts to sell Hummer are proceeding, and there are several parties interested — and I would say really interested — in the brand,” Troy Clarke, GM’s president of North America, said during a call to dealers today. “We’re still very much in the process, although that process is maturing.”
WTH is a “maturing sales process”? Does GM have a buyer for the world’s most politically incorrect automotive brand or not?
Clarke said GM doesn’t yet have “a determination” on whether Hummer will be sold or shuttered. “We feel it’s worth some additional time to see if a transaction can be made,” he said.
Hummer spokesman Nick Richards said, “We’re definitely in discussions with several interested parties,” but he didn’t elaborate.
Why would he?
If you can`t sell cars you manufacture, why do you think somebody will buy your company? Isn`t a manufacturing company about products? Wait, it`s America, so it is about portfolios, management, stocks, refinancing, market share capitalization and in the end by the way, about some products.While I can pull an illegal mexican immigrant through the gaps between front bumper and that 100 pound grille, while a can observe those chariot -like leaf springs and a plastic so fine you can scrub your grandma`s face with it, NO Thanks! A 2 product company that will advertize as if making at least dozen….Sounds so American…….Probably Gm waits when somebody would buy it , engineer some real trucks , and then star striped patriots will claim ` what a great American Hammer have we created!.` The same you can say about Polaroid…….
Perhaps the holdup is trying to figure out how many and which rebates the buyer is entitled to.
Check the New York Times for an article on how Iraqis now love Hummers. For the same reasons than Americans, by the way…
Maybe an Iraqi consortium should buy Hummer. How delicious the irony would be…
I can’t imagine why anyone would want to buy this brand. It was ill-conceived from the start, and no offers only two products, products which have little practical use for the vast majority of the population, and really aren’t that good to begin with.
Death to the Hummer… I hate those things with a passion. never have i thought that i can hate a machine that rides on 4 wheels and has an engine in it.
i just wish they close this brand down and do a retro active effect and go about collecting all the H2’s and H3’s that have been sold, and crush all of them. imagine the CO2 saved in this process.
i just wish they close this brand down and do a retro active effect and go about collecting all the H2’s and H3’s that have been sold, and crush all of them. imagine the CO2 saved in this process.
Sorta like the EV1?
They are stalling. Because of recent events, and because Hummer is an unsellable brand, they are waiting for the upcomming weeks and the verdict for the whole of GM. There’s no point in continuing the efforts of selling Hummer, if the whole company is going through chapter 11 within the next month or two. No important decisions of any kind will be made before that, as everything that GM owns at the moment can and will be used as leverage for a million things, big and small. Expect stalling and bluffing. The cards are shown, but everything that GM has up its sleeve is a possible win.
How about cranking out a Fiat Panda based Hummer H4 before selling it off? And if they succeed, an Aygio baseed H5? and later an Arctic Cat based H6, before proceeding to Mattel based H7.:))
Jurisb: You are mistaking GM for Chrysler. A Hummer H4 would most certainly be based off the Chevrolet Aveo.
Hummer was a brand with a concept that was actually quite popular and had lots of potential until gas prices went through the roof. It was a good idea while it lasted, at least for GM. Building vehicles with cheap, existing truck pieces and charging 15% more for them than your other SUVs was a very profitable excercise that bit them in the ass. The problem is that GM didn’t ever realize the profits because they pissed those away elsewhere in the company. Whether you’re a fan of Hummer or not, some people really liked them and if they had a more fuel efficient model to offer when gas prices spiked, they might have actually survived. And been profitable.
For some reason, I think that if HUMMER gets axed, it will immediately become a cool brand again.
Owning a fire-sale priced HUMMER, battered and dented, could be the ultimate chic.
It still boggles the mind that in the past four decades GM ADDED two brands and two stand alone dealer networks to its stable.
I could see HUMMER as a brand selling REAL work trucks and chassis for the basis for ambulances, UHauls etc, with a stripped down off-roader for the enthusiasts. I think that would tie in more with their military heritage than selling blinged-out poseurmobiles to urban commandos.
@Ingvar and jurisB:
Had GM not sold off its stake in Suzuki it might have been able to use the Fiat Sedici/SX4 platform…
…I can think of a few other platforms they could use for the Hummer H4, other than using complete and utter garbage like the Aveo. Maybe the Saturn Aura? Or the new Equinox? Or the Suzuki Grand Vitara? Or the… Really, anything but the Aveo.
Maybe Saudi Arabia should by them? They are always looking for ways to diversify their economy, get jobs for their enormous pool of youth, and they can sell them in the mid east market. And gasoline is cheap in KSA, Egypt, and Iran.
Stop with the H4 speculating…the Hummer brand is dead. DEAD! (and therefore unsellable)