Somebody Wants to Buy Hummer?

Image from Car Buyer's Notebook

To many of us, Hummers were tacky and over-the-top when they were first released. They were not only gas-hogs, they were garish, tarted up Tonka trucks. The thing that would pop into my head whenever I'd see one was "Overcompensate much?"

But for a while there, the ugly buggers were very popular. Growing outside of a niche, cult following, we started seeing them everywhere. Part of it was probably a post-9/11 patriotism/bravado thing. But you'd see tiny blonde women driving them, not necessarily loaded up with kiddies. Incongruous describes it pretty well.

Then, for a while, gas prices hit $4+ per gallon, and the Hummer seemed to lose its appeal overnight. Suddenly everyone saw them for the big shiny uglies that they were. And GM kept building them anyway. When they said they were going to try to sell the brand off, I thought "who'd want it?" Well, apparently the Chinese want to overcompensate for something too.

[Excerpt]

GM strikes Hummer deal with China machinery maker

General Motors Corp(GMGMQ.PK) said on Tuesday it reached a tentative deal to sellits Hummer brand to a privately held Chinese heavy machinerymaker, part of an effort to drop four unprofitable vehiclelines and leave bankruptcy as a leaner company. . .

Read more at: Reuters