Filed under: SUV, Hirings/Firings/Layoffs, Plants/Manufacturing, Hummer

Would the last one out the door please switch off the lights? The long strange trip that has been the Hummer brand is just about over for General Motors. The final ever production H3 rolled out of GM’s Shreveport, Louisiana factory on Monday May 24, 2010 on its way to an Avis rental car outlet. As you may recall, GM had actually stopped assembling H3s in mid-2009 as it went through bankruptcy, but it resumed production recently in order to fill an 849 unit special order.

GM tried to sell the Hummer brand to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machines Co., Ltd but the deal ultimately fell apart last February. A subsequent offer from Raser Technologies also went nowhere. Now that production has ceased, 200 of the 900 remaining employees at Shreveport will be laid off by July and the rest of the Hummer staff back at headquarters in Detroit is either leaving or being reassigned.

[Source: The Car Connection]

Turn Out the Lights: Final Hummer H3 rolls off the line… for Avis originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 25 May 2010 11:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Turn Out the Lights: Final Hummer H3 rolls off the line… for Avis

Filed under: SUV, Truck, Recalls, GM, Hummer

General Motors has just announced a sizeable recall on Hummer H3 models manufactured between 2006 and 2010. According to Consumer Reports, the vehicles have defective hood louvers that could come loose over time and detach from the vehicle while driving. The tabs that hold the louvers in place have been found to break, causing vibration that can lead to total separation.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration is warning H3 owners to be on the lookout for any vibration of the louver assembly, as that may be an indicator that a failure is likely. A total of 162,000 Hummers are covered under the recall, and General Motors says that technicians will apply an adhesive in order to keep the louvers from coming loose at no cost. Owners may contact Hummer at 800-732-5493 or visit the NHTSA recall site for more information.

[Source: NHTSA via Consumer Reports]

GM recalls 163k Hummer H3 models for hood issue originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 05 May 2010 17:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GM recalls 163k Hummer H3 models for hood issue

Filed under: SUV, Truck, Government/Legal, Hirings/Firings/Layoffs, Hummer, Off-Road

General Motors has already begun turning the lights off at its Hummer brand, though that may be no fault of multiple potential buyers. We’re not just talking interested parties from China here, either. According to brand enthusiast website HummerGuy, several American-based companies have expressed viable interest in snapping up the SUV-slinging manufacturer over the past few months. Even more surprisingly, all of the potential offers have reportedly fallen on deaf ears.

Both Raser Technologies and Electric Motors Corporation have supposedly made The General offers worth considering, and GM has left them unanswered. These whispers haven’t just been crawling around the web – they’ve evidently made their way all the way to Illinois Senator Roland Burris (above), who has promised to look into the matter himself.

While we’d be thoroughly surprised if such an investigation had any repercussions, we have to wonder why GM would say no both of the EV builders unless it thinks it can make more money winding down the brand by selling off tooling and manufacturing rights, or perhaps just avoiding bureaucratic headaches. Some experts believe GM might be worried about competition from future extended-range EVs, but we have a hard time imagining one of the world’s biggest manufacturers losing sleep over a couple of startups. Either way, as with Saab before it, there remains a sliver of hope for the brand, but we certainly wouldn’t bet on another eleventh-hour miracle.

[Source: HummerGuy | Image: Burris.senate.gov]

Report: Senator to investigate GM’s handling of Hummer deal originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Report: Senator to investigate GM’s handling of Hummer deal

Filed under: SUV, Truck, Government/Legal, Hirings/Firings/Layoffs, Plants/Manufacturing, Hummer, Earnings/Financials, Event Alert, Off-Road

Not so fast, Captain Planet. Hummer may be on its last leg at the moment, but fans of the brand aren’t going to let their favorite earth-roaming SUVs go down without a fight. Capital & Labor International Coalition, a newly-minted organization, thinks it has all the answers to the brand’s woes, and has scheduled a summit to help save Hummer here in the states on April 11.

This assemblage could be more than just a few fans with posters. CLIC has invited everyone from shareholders to Hummer’s CEO and United Auto Workers leaders. Thane Ritchie, chairman of the organization, said CLIC has taken a good hard look at the General Motors/Hummer issue and there may be another option out there other than just turning off the lights for good.

Members of the group have even invited Senator Rolland Burris (D-Illinois) to help out as well. Burris will be acting as a liaison between the coalition and the federal government, especially when it comes to getting any aid for the brand. In the meantime, the Save Hummer in America rally will be held next week in Chicago. Hey, it worked for Saab, right?

[Source: Automobile]

Report: Chicago-area ‘Save Hummer’ rally planned for April 11 originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Report: Chicago-area ‘Save Hummer’ rally planned for April 11

Filed under: Motorsports, Hummer, Off-Road

Team Miller Fisher has crossed the finish line of the Rallye A?cha des Gazelles – in a Hummer H3 driven off a Parisian dealer’s lot – and battled from 51st to 12th out of 98 teams after a mistake on the first leg. The Rallye A?cha, a six-stage trek through the desert, allows no use of GPS, no pace notes, no cell phones, and no binoculars. Pilots and co-pilots find their way between checkpoints with maps, compasses and pencils, and whoever completes the journey in the shortest distance, wins.

The race was made even harder this year by using not the 1:100,000-scale maps of years past, but scraps of paper with increasingly less route information as the race went on. Olympic skier and co-pilot Wendy Fisher wrote to say, “This continues to be the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. An unbelievably tough event. Days were SO long, almost impossible to get all of the checkpoints.”

Emily Miller noted, “We are happy with where we finished but we really would have love to end up in the top 10 and we lost that on our first day with navigation errors. The H3 did GREAT! Everybody loved the truck, it was the best stock truck we could have asked for and are grateful to HUMMER France for giving us the opportunity to drive it.” To Team Miller Fisher and all of the winners and competitors in the three classes we say: Way. To. Go.

[Source: Hummer]
Photos courtesy of Dan Campell-Lloyd

Team Miller Fisher finishes the 20th Anniversary Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 01 Apr 2010 07:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Team Miller Fisher finishes the 20th Anniversary Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles