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2008 – 2010
The review: On 3 June 2008, with fuel prices high and large-SUV sales collapsing, General Motors announced it was considering the sale or closure of the Hummer brand. The Mishawaka consequence came first and locally: in January 2009 H2 production was suspended and about 200 workers at the Commercial Assembly Plant were laid off — one contemporary account puts the number at 250 — with the company stating it was moving eligible H2 employees into other parts of the company, the military side included, "at considerable difficulty and expense." GM had sought a twenty-week closure of the plant as part of its own cuts. Production never resumed; the January suspension is the H2's end in fact, 2009 its final model year.
Bankruptcy and the failed sale: On 1 June 2009 General Motors entered bankruptcy, and Hummer was among the brands marked for discontinuance. A buyer was announced the next day, 2 June 2009: Sichuan Tengzhong, a Chinese industrial firm, would buy the brand. The sale required Chinese regulatory approval that never came, and the deal collapsed in February 2010 — the failure is dated 24 February in the record. On 6–7 April 2010 GM announced the wind-down of the brand outright. Two closing dates stand in the record and are printed as they stand: the marque archive dates the brand's end to 24 May 2010, when the last H3 was built at Shreveport; a dealer history carries GM's official shutdown at 31 October 2010.
What it left at Mishawaka: The wind-down closed no Mishawaka plant, because the military works were never GM's to close — but it emptied one. The Commercial Assembly Plant, eight years old, 675,000 square feet of modern body, paint, and assembly capacity, stood idle with its workforce dispersed into the military plant or laid off, and it stayed a problem in search of a product for the rest of the story told below: the MV-1, the R-Class, and the electric ventures are all, in plant terms, attempts to fill the building the H2 left.
Sources:
- General Motors announcements and the Hummer marque record — the 3 June 2008 review, the 1 June 2009 discontinuance in bankruptcy, the 2 June 2009 Tengzhong announcement, the February 2010 collapse, the April 2010 wind-down.
- Contemporary trade press (Autoblog; Motor Authority), January 2009 — the H2 suspension, the approximately 200 layoffs (one account 250), spokesman Craig Mac Nab on moving eligible employees, GM's twenty-week closure plan.
- GM Hummer Archive — the 24 May 2010 brand-end dating; dealer history — the 31 October 2010 official shutdown dating.