Late in May, a reeling GM shed off non-core assets. Much maligned Hummer went to China’s Tengzhong. GM’s German operation, Opel, got sold to Canada’s Magna.
Saturn, the quirky brand that was named after the boosters that lifted a man to the moon, was once GM’s experiment to recapture market share in mid-sized sedans. They got sold to U.S. entreprenuer Roger Penske. It appears that the real value is in Saturn’s dealer network rather than the cars. Some lines will be discontinued and others will go on, but it appears that Samsung-Renault cars will be rebadged as Saturns and sold through the existing dealer network.
It would be interesting to see a rebadged Samsung SM3 go through a “Saturn Launch.”
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I can’t imagine that there is much of a private market for Hummers in China – it would seem that the Chinese are solely interested in the military technology possessed by Hummer, yet the US government allows them to take over the company. Hummers probably should never have been sold to private consumers in the first place.
Wonderful! Just what the PLA needs, a 12 mpg jeep!
the Chinese are solely interested in the military technology possessed by Hummer.
that would be a different hummer.
According to Wikipedia:
“GM’s sale of HUMMER to Tengzhong will not include any HUMVEE military technology, since HUMVEE technology and production are owned exclusively by AM General, not General Motors”
But I find this hard to believe since the Hummer itself is based on the Humvee. It might not contain new military technology, but how could it not contain technology from the original Humvee of the 80s and early 90s? The early Hummers looked very similar to military Humvees.
and you can find some very nice panerais in china that surely don’t run on swiss timing.
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