History of Hummer

The American brand “Hummer” appeared in 1981, after the company “AM General” decided to rename its off-road military vehicle, designed for the needs of the United States Army. In 1983, the US military received 55,000 copies of the highly mobile all-terrain vehicle. However, the car became most popular only after the start of the American military campaign in the Middle East, where the 998 showed itself in all its glory, overcoming sand dunes faster than tanks could do. In addition, the Hummers could take on board a wide variety of equipment, which allowed the army to save on the use of third-party equipment.

In 1992, the company’s first civilian model was introduced, which was called the H1. The massive SUV could compete with rally cars in terms of its technical characteristics, differing from them in a much wider platform, which made it possible to upgrade the car using a wide variety of body options.

However, in 1998, AM General began bankruptcy proceedings, due to the fact that the development costs of new models turned out to be too high, and the government of the United States of America refused to subsidize the brand for further development. Thus, the Hummer brand became the property of one of the largest automobile concerns in the world – General Motors.

The company’s marketers carried out extensive work to form the target audience of the new brand, which allowed engineers to create the famous Hammer H2 model. The car was built on the platform of the Chevrolet Tahoe, having received, at the same time, a forced six-liter power unit with a capacity of 322 horsepower. In addition, the first copies of the model were equipped with an advanced lighting system for night driving.

Due to the fact that General Motors was able to seriously reduce the cost of the new Hummer model, it was decided to continue expanding the range of these off-road vehicles. So in 2005, the compact Hummer H3 was introduced, which was built on the platform of the Chevrolet S10 mid-size pickup truck. Despite the fact that the car has ceased to be a frame, the all-wheel drive system and high ground clearance have again become defining decisions. Under the hood is a five-cylinder power unit with a capacity of 220 horsepower, and new five-speed manual transmissions and four-speed automatics have been added to equipment options. In 2008, the H3T modification was introduced, which was a pickup version of the compact Hummer with an extended chassis.

However, after the start of the economic crisis, profits from expensive and uneconomical Hummers gradually began to fall, and in 2009, General Motors, which was on the verge of bankruptcy, decided to put up for sale several of its brands, including Hummer. . The legendary manufacturer of off-road vehicles was claimed by several large concerns at once, as well as a number of companies from China that planned to convert Hummer factories to produce heavy equipment for industrial construction.

One way or another, but thanks to the intervention of the governments of the United States of America and Canada, which bought back part of the shares of General Motors, which helped pay off debts and carry out a large-scale restructuring. The result was the closure of the conveyor for the production of cars of the Hummer brand and the conversion of the plant, which began to produce off-road vehicles of another brand of General Motors – Chevrolet.