Way to go GM! you really do have some brains when it counts. Now just kill Buick, Saab, and GMC while you’re at it.

I wonder if GM will try and hang on to the trademark to deny it to potential competitors.

The original H1 was a relatively rare bird and ranks up there with the Wrangler Rubicon & Unimog as extremely capable off road vehicles in stock form.

The H2 & H3 were poseur abominations. While they had moderate capability their weight was a significant handicap in many off road scenarios.

The Top Gear hill climb challenge where the Range Rover won while the H2 self destructed was a great illustration of how marketing was writing checks the product could not cash.

There will be other survivors from the great SUV extinction wave.

At the high end much of the Mercedes, BMW & Rover product will survive. When you can drop $60-80+k plus on your whip you don’t sweat a $150 trip to the gas station.

If put on a diet and returned to its pickup truck roots the 4Runner/FJ Cruiser could continue; If Toyota were so inclined they could build an awesome wrangler-killer.

John Horner: “I expect the Suburban and a few Jeeps to carry one, but reduced back to their 1960s natural markets. Suburbans used to be cheap to build because it was just a Chevy pickup truck with an enclosed back instead of an open bed.”

That was my first thought, too, that the last ones standing would be the originals (Suburban, Wrangler, and whatever Jeep is closest to the original Wagoneer) but I’m not sure today’s market will sustain the base, utilitarian nature of these vehicles as they were conceived so many decades ago.

Of course, if GM and whoever owns Jeep by then can keep the asking price for such vehicles within reason, even basic, utilitarian big SUVs could survive.

I think the better move would have been to move it more upmarket and make it into a RR type luxo-badge. Kill/overhaul the incredibly cheap looking H3, add some fancier options, and price it about 5-10K under RR. They want $40K+ for the LR3? The H3 is bigger with a more aggressive look. Just give it a proper V6 and a decent interior and it should run circles around the LR3.

That’s true. Brain freeze on my part, GM does own the trademark.

In the scheme of things, though, I don’t think that matters much. Without product, the trademark is practically worthless to GM. Even if AM General wants it back, it probably wouldn’t pay much, if anything, as they could rebrand these things without much harm done.

Here’s a guess as to one possible outcome. The arrangement changes from GM paying AM General a fee to build its trucks, to one in which AM General pays GM a relative pittance for designs and parts that AM General assembles, distributes and markets. Same vehicles, same dealers, same parts, same everything, really.

The sales volumes will be lower, so the UAW is going to see some layoffs, which will still look pretty good compared to a full shutdown. GM won’t really earn much from it, but it will allow them to burn through some parts inventory. AM General is doing what it knows how to do, but doing less of it then when GM was around.

A worst case scenario does exist: I wonder if little leak will put further weight on an already strained image (following on, say, plant closures, today’s disastrous WSJ article, fun with American Axle and friends, and Kerkorian’s bet on Ford) and lead to an old-fashioned bank-run on GM?

But what are the odds of that, eh? I should mention, I’m in agreement with Geotpf as to what would probably /actually/ happen…

As far as I can tell AM General sold the HUMMER trademark to GM as opposed to GM merely licensing it; AM General is now a mere contractor to GM, to build the H2. That is, when their contract expires, GM can kill off the H2 and AM General would have no recourse. The H3 is based on, and made in the same factory as, the GMC Canyon and Chevy Colorado, and probably wouldn’t be killed off immediately until that plant closes or those trucks are redesigned.

So, here’s my guess as to what will happen:

The H2 will be killed as soon as GM’s contract with AM General expires, although I imagine leftover stock would still be available for several years. Even though the H1 was cancelled in 2006, a dozen brand new H1s have been sold this year. I imagine the H2’s situation would be similiar, with stock easily available for least a year after production shut down.

The H3 will remain, with the H3T and probably the H3 Alpha joining it.

The H4 is cancelled. This might have had a chance, as being a true small, off-road, Wrangler-like vehicle, but it’s probably not worth the money to put it into production.

Advertising support for the H3 series will be very limited. However, HUMMER will remain in business, selling H3s and leftover H2s, at least until the Canyon/Colorado is redesigned or cancelled.

No sale of the brand would be attempted. While the H2 is produced in a seperate line, the H3 (which makes up about 75% of HUMMER’s sales) is produced at the same plant as GM’s medium sized pickups, so GM would be producing the majority of the brand’s products anyways, even if it was sold. GM would still be directly tied to HUMMER even if it sold the brand, and nobody would buy such a turkey anyways.

It’s safe to guess that AM General already has plenty of plant capacity, so they don’t need to add overseas plants. As a US military contractor, they need to operate US facilities. It’s also a relatively small company that probably couldn’t afford to build a new plant, even if it wanted to.

Whether they can be profitable, I don’t know. They were losing money before GM showed up, so maybe not. Still, they should be motivated to try. GM has bigger fish to fry, but AM General doesn’t have that many fish, so it can focus on cooking this one. I’ll bet that AM General is backed into a corner with this one.

interesting analysis. I agree that Hummer could in fact have a future. One thing to remember is that H3’s are built for the world export market in South Africa at about 10000 units exported a year.

man if I were AM General, I’d dump the US plant and focus on the export market using the South Africa plant with its lower (and hopefully sustainable) volumes.

ahh but the devil’s in the details. Where are the parts for that plant coming from? Is it the USA or have they already sourced a lot of it locally or from other places like China.

Who knows, maybe with enough R&D, hard work, and a bit of luck, Hummer vehicles can actually be a competitor to the Toyota Hiluxes/Mitsubishi Pajeros of the 3rd world.

boy it sure would be funny if Hummer became successful everywhere but here in the good ole’ US of A.

edit: Also just in case anyone really wants to know here is a comparison chart from AM General detailing the major differences between the H1 and the HMMWV. (the pdf link at the top of the page has more detail and is pretty humorous too)

http://www.amgeneral.com/vehicles_hmmwv_vs_h1.php

yes it’s a shame the H1 can’t ford 60 inches of water. other than that, the capability and mobility of the H1 and the HMMWV are nearly identical.

Stein X Leikanger,

That doesn’t make sense. Hummers were used by the US military. Where did they use them? Route 66?

They must have SOME off-roading capability!

===

There’s a mountain of distinction between the military issue origin, and what people were tooling about itn hinking they were doing the right thing and fighting the good war at home.

There are 17 variants of the military version. The civilian H1 is down-spec’d and also made road safe … in ways that reduce its military mobility.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Mobility_Multipurpose_Wheeled_Vehicle

First, let’s understand what HUMMER is. It is not a true GM division, in the same way that Chevrolet or Cadillac are, for example. HUMMER is comprised of a trademark that GM licensed from AM General.

The vehicles that are sold by HUMMER are produced as part of a venture agreement between GM and AM General. The agreement pays AM General a fee to assemble vehicles that GM manufactures, markets and distributes. GM provided a loan to build the Mishawaka factory, but AM General owns the plant. That agreement between GM and AM General is about to expire.

This puts a couple of things in perspective. First of all, there isn’t much for GM to sell in this situation. GM owns a trademark and an expiring agreement to have someone else build stuff that GM designs. Not much to offer to a potential buyer.

Secondly, GM may not be the only one with a problem here. AM General added a lot of plant capacity and employees to build the GM vehicles. GM paid for the plant expansion, but its maintenance and labor are AM General’s responsibility. The UAW has an agreement to build these that expires at around the same time that the GM-AM General agreement expires. And of course, you have the dealers, a lot of which are single-brand stores.

What all of that means, I’m not sure. But AM General, the dealers and possibly the UAW might be highly motivated to work together in order to avert their own problems once the GM sheriff leaves town.

Unlike GM, AM General builds only trucks, so they should have no interest in completely abandoning the truck business. AM General is owned by a private equity company that I assume does not want to lose its shirt on this deal, either.

I’m willing to bet that HUMMER is going to end up in AM General’s hands, in some way, shape or form. GM’s announcement to sell was probably the opening salvo to negotiation with AM General to put a deal together. AM General should be in a better position to turn a profit from lower sales volumes than GM ever would be, and even if they aren’t, they may have no choice but to try.

Good riddance to HUMMER, next up is GMC and Buick. Needless rebadges.

I mean, the H2 and H3 have competed (and sometimes won) in the stock class of the Baja 1000!

is that not off-road enough? sheesh.

if anything, the problem with Hummer was that they were too off-roadey (even the crappy H2)

in terms of ride comfort, passenger space, cargo volume, and of course price the Hummer couldn’t compete with even the rest of GM’s line of SUVs.

trash on Hummer all you want about fuel economy, reliability, american faddishness, and Arnie’s obsession, but i would think that off-road prowess would be the one of the last things to complain about.

I think HUMMER is kind of a silly vehicle to own. But I wouldn’t go around saying these things have no off-road (”off-street”?) cred: I believe it was a major 4×4 magazine that recently declared HUMMER “4×4 Vehicle of the Year,” or something like that. And that was for the much-maligned civilian model available at GM dealerships, not the completely different military version.

That doesn’t make sense. Hummers were used by the US military. Where did they use them? Route 66?

They must have SOME off-roading capability!

The car’s useless for such applications. It’s a vanity “I want to be Schwarzenegger” silly oversized car that had no raison d’etre.