GM Discharges HUMMER H1 from Active Duty
May. 15, 2006

Age and rising gas prices have finally caught up with the HUMMER H1 as General Motors confirmed last week it will drop the rugged, off-road vehicle from its model line at the end of 2006 model run this summer.

Martin Walsh, HUMMER's general manager, said in a statement that after 14 years, GM has decided concentrate its resources on smaller, more up-to-date vehicles. "It's a reflection of where we're going with the HUMMER brand," he said of the decision. "The HUMMER DNA still resides in the Humvee. It will always be the core from where we come," he said.

Nick Richards, HUMMER spokesman, also said that GM has other HUMMER models under development that will help the brand expand in the future. Officials from AM General, the Indiana-based maker of military vehicles, also said it needed to make more room in itsIndiana factory to build more vehicles for the U.S. Army.

Even environmentalists discovered a soft spot for the vehicle after the GM announcement, noting the HUMMER, which became something of status symbol after the Gulf War in the 1990s, has served as perfect symbol of gas-guzzling excess. The H1, which was developed back in the 1980s as light truck to carry troops and replace the old M1A1 Jeep, gets about 10 miles per gallon and that seemed to be a generous estimate - but most HUMMER owners didn't worry about pump prices.

GM has sold about 12,000 H1s, which carried a price tag of roughly $140,000. The company only has sold 100 so far this year. The other models in the HUMMER line, the H2 and the H3, are doing better and Richards noted that GM expects to begin building the H3 in South Africa later this year for distribution to markets in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The goal is to make HUMMER into a global brand, he said. -Joe Szczesny