The GM chapter I: General Motors buys the brand

1999

The announcement: In June 1999 General Motors and AM General announced their intention: GM would take the Hummer name into its brand empire, and AM General would build the vehicles. The agreements were entered on 21 December 1999. Some secondary summaries misdate the brand purchase to 1998; the December 1999 agreements govern, and the misdating is noted here because it recurs.

The terms: Under the agreements, GM acquired exclusive worldwide ownership of the HUMMER brand name and the vehicle's intellectual property, and took responsibility for marketing and distributing all civilian Hummers. The original vehicle — AM General's civilian Humvee, on sale since 1992 — was renamed the H1. AM General received exclusive production rights for the first new model, the H2, and agreed to construct a brand-new facility to build it: the second plant on McKinley Highway is the direct product of this clause. AM General kept the right to use the Hummer grille design on the military Humvee. The division of labor the deal created defines everything that follows at Mishawaka: GM owned the name, the designs, and the market; AM General owned the plants and built the trucks. The military Humvee was never GM's — the brand purchase touched only the civilian line — and the H1 and H2 that GM sold were Mishawaka-built from first to last.

Sources:

1. General Motors / AM General agreements as carried in the Hummer marque record and the SEC-filed agreement summaries — the June 1999 announcement of intent, the 21 December 1999 agreements, the transfer of the brand name and intellectual property, GM's marketing and distribution responsibility, the H1 renaming, AM General's exclusive H2 production rights and new-facility commitment, the retained grille rights.