Sarbox?

The six Gulf Cooperation Council countries — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates consume as much energy as China and they export little, unlike China who makes just about everthing we buy in America.

The middle east as a whole (including the oppressive countries there) have increased their oil consumption by about 6% a year, every year since 2004. Enabling them to use more does not seem in the best interest of stable oil prices.

Selling the HUMMER division for a couple of hundred million bucks may be good for GM today, but if it encourages another society to fall in love with gas guzzlers, (that someone else will profit from) and use more even oil, it can’t be good for them in the long run… It’s just a thought

Kuwait has about 2.6 million people. The nation is about the size of some of West Texas’ larger counties. It has a staggering 101 billion barrels of oil reserves. The US is over 500 times larger than Kuwait and only has less than a quarter of its oil reserves. Current production is 2.7 million barrels per day, most of that is exported. If GM should let the free market send some unsold H2’s to Kuwait and other such nations, I doubt that they would be significantly stifling the global supply of oil.

All figures are sourced from the CIA World Factbook

Despite all that, it’s a perfect niche vehicle and I’m sure that done right it’ll continue selling well. People that like that sort of thing will keep on liking that sort of thing. Better to keep them buying more Hummers than resorting to Jeeps.

Frank Williams : My friend’s acquaintance was given a free H2 and got rid of it a few weeks later because he thought it was too thirsty. It needed $70 of gas every 3 days and this was back when gas was cheap.

I never called it a rebadge.

I have spent time in an H2. And hated every minute of it. It’s way too large on the outside, way too small on the inside and way too thirsty for its own good.

Anyone who can bend down and take a closer look can quickly see the differences if they knew what they were looking at.

But they prolly think the new Fj is exactly like the older FJ. But better with a CD player!

Sorry Frank. But it appears that you’ve never spent time in either. I do hope that one day you can sit in the seat and do the Rubicon. I did.

The name has plenty of brand recognition and many of the dealerships are located in areas with plenty of need for the later. Plus, it’s very hard for many foreign brands to overcome the prejudices related to their countries history. A Russian company with a Russian sounding name would have plenty of issues these days as would a Middle Eastern one.

Hummer is very marketable. Unfortunately, they’re doing this at a time when the financial services industry is experiencing an overhaul. It would be very hard for even a well run ‘Hummer’ to compare with the margins that are found in that side of the business world.

Actually, you could make a case for bundling those divisions into attractive packages:
· You’ve got the heavy-duty line of GMC and Hummer, with ACDelco and whatever Allison they still own;
· The sporty Euro line of Saab, Opel and Vauxhall;
· The performance line of Holden and Pontiac (Opel or Oldsmobile could be part of this, too);
· The economy line of Saturn and Daewoo, with the remains of GMAC.
· And the Heritage/near-luxury Oldsmobile, Oakland, Marquette, Buick and LaSalle.

Heavy-duty goes to, say, a Middle Eastern, Indian or Russian buyer like AutoVAZ;
Euro to an English or German consortium, maybe a VC-backed worker buyout;
Performance spun off as an independent with contracts in place with Euro;
Economy…Hyundai? Private equity?
And Heritage is a natural for a Chinese acquisition, like SAIC.

And GM has another few billion in cash to burn through.

John