Chinese truckmaker set to buy Hummer

You may already be familiar with what will likely be the first Chinese car on sale in the U.S., a Hummer.

Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company (Tengzhong) is in advanced talks with GM to purchase Hummer. Tengzhong is expected to enter into a long-term contract assembly and supply agreement with GM, pending government approvals on both sides, in the third quarter this year.

The New York Times cites industry analysts who estimate the purchase would be for less than $500 million. Established in 2005, privately owned Tengzhong manufactures construction and specialty trucks in China. It has expanded through acquisitions, and the Hummer brand would give it access to the U.S. and a consumer product for sale worldwide.

The deal promises to preserve more than 3,000 jobs, as the intention is for Hummer to continue to be run from America. GM expects a commitment to keep the Shreveport, La., plant building H3s and H3Ts through 2010, with the possibility to extend. Production in South Africa would be consolidated to the Shreveport plant.

As part of its downsizing and restructuring, General Motors decided to sell off the iconic brand of civilian SUVs modeled after the U.S. military HMMWVs built by AM General. The first “Humvee” was built in 1985, and made famous with its televised role in Operation Desert Storm, where 20,000 examples served. The first civilian H1 was first produced in 1992.

—Eric Evarts and Jeff Bartlett

Comments

[David]

Will anyone want to buy a Hummer after this?
I'll stick with my Jeep, thank you.

[Weiping Wang]

A symbol of American over-consumerism, now owned and will be "Made in China". Hummer of China will just continue to feed America's greedy demand for Chinese goods.
Works for me!!

[God]

Chinese financial analysts recently said that this private company from China made such a bad decision because Hummer SUCKS!
Toyota, Honda, Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagon, Hyundai have been manufacturing cars in China for many years already. Chinese already know how to build good quality cars from Japan and Germany already. Why China need Hummer at all given that American cars suck anyway?

Rumors said Chinese government may step up to make that company to halt the deal since it is a waste of money. Good call!

[Mike]

Hmm...so my off road options are Sichuan Tengzhong and Fiat now...

[coolcar]

Hummer is bad off enough already, with poor fuel economy, visibility, comfort, handling, and performance. Nobody needs some chinese company to mess things up even more.

Plus, who will actually buy a hummer when they hear it is made by some unheard of company with no experience producing passenger cars

[coolcar]

Does anybody know what will happen to the military humvee?

If US marines are going to be driving around in Chinese cars...

[Kinter]

It's not a good idea to buy Hummer at this time in my opinion.