DETROIT — General Motors said on Wednesday that it would shut down Hummer, the brand of big sport utility vehicles that became synonymous with the term gas guzzler, after a deal to sell it to a Chinese manufacturer fell apart.

The buyer, Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machines, said in a statement that it had withdrawn its bid because it was unable to receive approval from the Chinese government, which was trying to put a new emphasis on limiting China’s dependence on imported oil and protecting the environment.

Tight financial markets also hurt the deal. When the commerce ministry did not bless the transaction, the well-capitalized Chinese banks became reluctant to lend money to Tengzhong, even though it tried to set up an overseas subsidiary to buy Hummer. That left Tengzhong trying to borrow money from Western banks that have been curtailing their lending even to established borrowers, much less a little-known company from western China.

A spokesman for Hummer, Nick Richards, said G.M. had no specific timetable for completing its wind-down, but left open the possibility that G.M. would be open to new bids.

“We just reached this decision today, so we’re just beginning the process,” Mr. Richards said. “Typically, winding down a brand can take several months. If there are viable alternatives for part of the brand or all of the brand during the process, we’ll consider them.”

G.M. had been trying to sell Hummer for nearly two years, and struck a preliminary deal with Tengzhong in June. The two companies had planned to complete the $150 million deal by the end of January, then delayed the deadline by a month in the hopes of receiving approval from China.

“We have since considered a number of possibilities for Hummer along the way, and we are disappointed that the deal with Tengzhong could not be completed,” John Smith, G.M.’s vice president for corporate planning and alliances, said in a statement. “G.M. will now work closely with Hummer employees, dealers and suppliers to wind down the business in an orderly and responsible manner.”

Over the years, Hummer shifted from a brawny status symbol that drew attention on the road into an automotive pariah. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California helped the brand become popular and once owned a fleet of Hummers, but more recently, he described the brand as prime evidence of the Detroit automakers’ failings.

Still, dealers and fans were optimistic that Hummer could live on.

They expected to see smaller, more fuel-efficient models introduced under Tengzhong that would help the brand “get away from people just thinking it was a big gas hog,” said Danny Hill, the general sales manager at Classic Hummer in Grapevine, Tex.

“It is a great, great vehicle that really does anything you want it to do,” Mr. Hill said. “It had a great concept to it. It’s a real shame that it’s going away, because the people who own Hummers, they just love them.”

It was the third time since G.M. emerged from bankruptcy protection last year that a deal to sell one of its unwanted brands collapsed. The company is shutting down Saturn, and it began to halt operations at Saab after a deal with Koenigsegg in Sweden was called off. G.M. later reached an agreement with a Dutch company, Spyker Cars; that deal was completed on Tuesday.

G.M. is also closing Pontiac, but it never tried to sell that brand. The carmaker is focusing on its Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC brands as it works to recover from bankruptcy.

G.M. said it would honor Hummer warranties and provide service and parts to Hummer owners worldwide. Hummer has nearly 400 dealerships globally, including 153 in the United States.

The announcement was celebrated by environmentalists, who have long pressed G.M. simply to kill the brand, which was born from military Humvees in 1992. G.M. acquired it in 1999.

“Closing Hummer simultaneously improves the health of G.M., China and the planet,” said Daniel Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign at the Center for Auto Safety in Washington. “Hummer should rest in pieces.”

About 3,000 jobs in the United States could be affected by the shutdown, including positions at G.M. and dealerships. A factory in Shreveport, La., that builds the Hummer H3 and H3T, as well as other G.M. trucks, already was scheduled to close by 2012.

The larger H2 was built for G.M. by A. M. General in Mishawaka, Ind., until December, when production was temporarily halted to allow the sale process to conclude.

Mr. Richards said Hummer dealers in the United States had about 2,500 vehicles in their inventories. In January, the brand sold just 265 units in the country. Hummer sales plunged 67 percent in 2009, to a total of 9,046.

The deal would have made Tengzhong the first Chinese company to sell vehicles in North America, though it planned to keep Hummer’s operations in the United States.

“Tengzhong worked earnestly to achieve an acquisition that it believed to be a tremendous opportunity to acquire a global brand at an attractive price,” Tengzhong said in its statement.

Its bid for Hummer was an audacious move, particularly by Chinese standards. The company is privately held, so it did not have the connections that many government-owned enterprises enjoy; by contrast, government agencies own part or all of China’s 10 largest automakers.

Tengzhong concluded the initial deal with G.M. in June and was supposed to close the deal by September. Some in Detroit were furious that the Chinese review process then dragged on for eight months, during which the American auto industry showed few signs of recovery and the potential value of Hummer continued to decline.

The timing of Tengzhong’s bid was bad from the beginning. High oil prices in the summer of 2008 led to a broad move by the Chinese government to improve energy efficiency and limit oil imports.

THE just-introduced (and just-canceled) Pontiac Solstice coupe is already assured a place in automotive history, and not only because its fleeting production run lasted mere months.

This new targa-top Solstice is the last of the Pontiacs, the final breath of a brand that failed to adapt to a changing world. Once-proud Pontiac is being phased out by General Motors, its parent, and will be gone in 2010. The Solstice coupe, a fixed-roof variation of the four-year-old roadster, is Pontiac’s last new model.

It could become something of a collector’s item.

“We expect that total production will be in the neighborhood of 1,100 units when we cease operations at the Wilmington plant by the end of July,” Jim Hopson, a Pontiac spokesman, wrote in an e-mail message. All Solstice coupes will have sequential ID numbers, so owners will know exactly which car of the 1,100 they have.

The coupe I tested was the hot GXP version, which comes with a 260-horsepower 4-cylinder engine. Its window sticker of $31,045 created an expectation of polish and comfort that I felt, considering the price, it failed to deliver.

Here is a car that essentially matches my definition a doomed romance. Its drop-dead gorgeous exterior made me yearn for a fling that would turn meaningful, but a week of companionship revealed a list of quirks that included nearly every imaginable character flaw. A love-hate relationship, I suppose, was inevitable.

The spartan cabin, finished in unrelenting black on my test car, was especially noteworthy: I believe it could be the first automotive interior styled entirely by an accounting department. The only minimum-security prison I have ever visited (honest, it was only to interview an inmate) had more luxurious appointments.

The seats are tolerable, but neither supportive nor particularly adjustable — there is no place else for them to go in the cramped cockpit. Plus-size drivers should shop elsewhere.

There is virtually no convenient storage — no handy place for a cellphone, no bin to hold coins, no storage in the enormous console, no cubbies or map pockets in the doors. But there is a slit along the door sill, long enough and wide enough for a package of Slim Jim jerky.

A package shelf under the hatchback rear window is only large enough to hold the bare essentials for a weekend getaway. But if you pop for the temporary fabric top to use when the removable panel has been left home (there’s no place onboard to stash the 31-pound targa panel), the package area is commandeered to store that. So plan your trips carefully, paying close attention to the weather forecast.

The power window controls are perfectly placed for someone with six-inch-long forearms; otherwise, use your elbows. The dashboard instruments are partly eclipsed by the adjustable steering wheel, regardless of its position. The gauge faces and the radio’s digital display panel can be difficult to read, but, hey, it’s only a problem during most daylight hours.

The shifter for the 5-speed manual transmission clanks like a tenement radiator in February. Wind and road noise with the top shut is intrusive enough to warrant constant checks that the windows are all the way up and doors aren’t flapping open.

The turbocharged Ecotec 2-liter 4-cylinder makes an industrial whine but it is capable of pushing this 3,018 pound package — that’s slightly more than the convertible, oddly enough — from zero to 60 m.p.h. in 5.2 seconds, according to Car and Driver magazine. The federal fuel economy rating is 19 miles a gallon in town and 28 on the highway with the 5-speed manual.

The suspension is tuned too soft for thrashing around during amateur hour at your local racetrack. Despite standard Bilstein monotube shock absorbers, there is a generous amount of bobbing and weaving on grip-challenged 18-inch Goodyears.

The stability control system can be turned off, but my advice is to avoid this — or be prepared for some anxious moments of oversteer in spirited driving. In normal driving — freeway cruising, errand-running and getting groceries (although there is little room for them) — the GXP coupe is generally quite pleasant and stable.

Despite its many faults, the shapely little coupe is a sexy attention-getter, another beauty designed by Franz von Holzhausen when he was a rising star at General Motors. (Mr. von Holzhausen subsequently left for Mazda and is now at Tesla.) Outward visibility is atrocious, but that’s the price of being so stylish. If you can’t live with that, buy an old Volvo wagon.

Creature discomforts aside, friends and family all wanted to ride in the coupe, the longer the trip the better. Beware of straying too far from home, though: Consumer Reports found the reliability record of the Solstice convertible and the similar Saturn Sky to be dismal.

So what sort of epitaph, if any, does the Solstice GXP coupe suggest for the once-mighty Pontiac nameplate? In many ways it is a rolling testament of G.M.’s shortsightedness: a pinch of pizazz, a dash of panache, all mixed into a package of unmet promise.

Source (article): NYTIMES

Source (photo): CARWALLS

Whether or not General Motors files for bankruptcy protection, the carmaker has made clear that its future plans do not include two brands — Saturn and Hummer — that once seemed to hold immense promise for the company.

GM has said it will decide this year whether to sell or discontinue both brands as part of the stringent cost-cutting measures aimed at trying to restore the ailing company’s financial stability. The overall effort also has created an uncertain future for two other GM divisions, Saab and Opel.

Even with such efforts, however, many believe the company will be forced to file for bankruptcy protection, perhaps as soon as Monday.

GM spokesman John M. McDonald said this week the automaker has identified parties interested in purchasing Saturn and Hummer, but he would not provide specifics on who might be interested or when any deals might be reached.

“Obviously our interest is to have these brands find a home outside of GM and to continue as a business that can grow and flourish,” McDonald said. “At the same time, I don’t think there’s any illusion: We need to restructure GM, and as we restructure GM there’s no room for those brands.”

The troubles facing the Saturn and Hummer brands are in many ways indicative of the underlying problems that have pushed GM to this point.

Different kind of car
When GM announced plans to launch the Saturn line in 1983, it promised to be different from typical U.S. brands in every way, from its nimble assembly line operation to its no-hassle showroom floor. A major focus was on customer service, including a pledge that buyers would not have to haggle on price.

The company’s early efforts paid off.

“They came out with one vehicle — average vehicle, average price, average quality,” but still found success against their Japanese competitors practically overnight, said Robert M. Wiseman, a professor at Michigan State University’s Eli Broad College of Business.

Still, after a strong start, things went downhill for Saturn, Wiseman said. He faults GM for not investing enough in Saturn’s next generation of vehicles, leaving the company without a strong enough product line to bring its initial customers back again.

As time went on, the Saturn brand also became more enmeshed in GM’s general operations, borrowing design elements from sibling brands and gradually mixing production facilities, experts say. The result has been cars that are too similar to other GM nameplates and do little to excite the customer, some industry analysts say.

“They lost their way a long time ago,” said George Magliano, IHS Global Insight’s director of automotive industry research for North America.

Still, Magliano said that more recently Saturn has seemed to find its footing again with promising new models such as the Aura and the Astra. But the improvements may have come too late.

Source(pictures): CARBODYDESIGN, ALIBABA