The History of Hummer car maker & VIN decoder

Hummer is an SUV brand that first entered the market in 1992, when AM General began selling a civilian version of the M998 Humvee military SUV.

AM General had been planning to sell a civilian version of its Humvee military SUV since the late 1980s. With the same construction and most mechanical components, the civilian Humvee was painted a glossy color with the addition of passenger car improvements such as air conditioning, soundproofing, upgraded upholstery, stereo system and comfortable seats. The civilian model came about in part because of the insistence of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who saw the Army Convoy while filming a movie in Oregon, USA, and began a campaign to make the civilian version available on the market. In 1992, AM General began selling a civilian version of the M998 Humvee military SUV under the Hummer brand name. The first two Hummer H1s sold were purchased by Schwarzenegger.

In December 1999, AM General sold the Hummer trademark to General Motors, but continued to produce the vehicles. GM was responsible for the marketing and distribution of all civilian Hummer vehicles produced by AM General. Shortly thereafter, GM introduced two models of its own design, the H2 and H3. At the same time, the civilian version of the M998 Humvee SUV was officially renamed the H1.

AM General continued to produce the H1 until it was discontinued in 2006, and GM contracted with AM General to produce the H2 model. The H3 was produced at the Shreveport, LA plant, along with the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon pickups, with which the H3 shared the GMT-355 platform.

On October 10, 2006, GM began production of the Hummer H3 at its Port Elizabeth plant in South Africa for international markets. In April 2009, GM President Fritz Henderson announced that several interested parties had approached GM about purchasing the Hummer brand.

On June 1, 2009, as part of the bankruptcy announcement, General Motors announced that production of Hummer vehicles would cease. The next day, however, GM announced that it had instead struck a deal to sell the Hummer brand to an unknown buyer. After GM announced the same day that the sale was made by a Chinese company, CNN and the New York Times named Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company Ltd. of China as the buyer of the Hummer brand. Later that day, Sichuan Tengzhong itself announced the deal on its website.

Later, on February 24, 2010, GM announced that the deal with Tengzhong had broken down and the Hummer brand would soon be liquidated. There were reports that Sichuan Tengzhong might acquire the Hummer brand from GM by buying it privately through the new J&A Tengzhong Fund SPC, a private equity fund owned by an offshore company that attracted private investors for the purchase, but those plans were not fated to happen either.

GM has announced that it is willing to consider offers for all or part of the assets. The American company Raser Technologies, along with several other companies, had expressed interest in buying Hummer. However, on April 7, 2010 and that attempt failed, General Motors officially announced that it was closing the Hummer SUV brand and offering great discounts on the remaining 2,200 vehicles in stock. The last Hummer H3 rolled off the assembly line in Shreveport on May 24, 2010.

In mid-2019, rumors began circulating that General Motors was considering reviving the Hummer brand in 2021. GM President Marc Riuss was asked about a possible return in the summer of 2019,he said: 'I love Hummer. I don't. We're looking at all the possibilities'. Confidence in earlier reports began to build after General Motors employees ended their strike in 2019, as negotiations led to GM committing to save its Detroit/Hamtramck plant from closure by investing and retooling it to produce future electric trucks and SUVs.

By November 2019, the media had all but confirmed that Hummer would return with two electric models, a truck and an SUV, sometime in 2021. On Nov. 21, 2019, General Motors CEO Mary Barra confirmed that GM will release an electric pickup truck in fall 2021, but did not name the brand under which it will be built.

The new Hummer lineup will not be a separate brand, as it was before General Motors went bankrupt, but a model within the GMC brand. The Hummer EV SUT was officially introduced on Oct. 20, 2020. The Hummer EV SUV was introduced on April 3, 2021. The all-electric GMC sub-brand will have several versions: first, only the most expensive four-door Edition 1 pickup will be available, then other models, and then the SUV. Do not forget to use Hummer VIN decoder in order to avoid potential problems when buying a used car.

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