2006 Hummer H2 on 2040-cars

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These were our favorite cars of 2022

Favorite cars is different than best cars. The idea of "best" can speak to value and overall competitiveness in a given vehicle segment. There's lots of objectivity involved and to do a "best" list right, one really must be very thorough and as scientific as possible. This is not that list. This is about our favorites, so objectivity be damned. If we liked a Challenger Hellcat because it made loud noises or a Honda Odyssey because it made for a particularly special family vacation, fair game. These were the cars that most spoke to our collection of editors and the ones that stayed in our minds and hung in our hearts long after they left our driveway. — Senior Editor James Riswick 2022 GMC Hummer EV Senior Editor, Green, John Beltz Snyder: I didn't particularly expect to like the new Hummer. I wasn't a fan of the Hummer H2 or H3, so I wasn't automatically enthusiastic about this electric reboot. Fast EVs aren't hard to come by — and, in fact, may be too easy to come by — so its performance specs weren't enough to win me over. Despite videos to the contrary, pickups aren't my favorite vehicular format. And its excessive size and weight turned me off ... until I finally got behind the wheel.  This thing is wildly entertaining to drive. Watts to Freedom launch control is a neat party trick, sure, but the novelty wears off quickly. The novelty of Crab Walk, however, has staying power. The rear-wheel steering makes this behemoth feel much smaller than it is — the maneuverability is incredible, and useful. The air suspension provides tons of clearance, including a ridiculously high-riding Extract mode. I can't wait for lesser versions of the Hummer to make their way to market. Give me less power (for less money), but keep the off-road tricks onboard, and I'll be a happy camper. Senior Editor, Consumer, Jeremy Korzeniewski: If I could afford to put one of these in my driveway, I would. Sadly, I can't, so I won't (What's that, Janet? I got the lyric wrong?). Still, I love the dumb thing. Thankfully, I have another choice down below. 2022 Porsche 911 GT3 Associate Editor Byron Hurd: Yeah, duh, Porsches are good. But there's good, and then there's GT3. This is the feeling every performance-oriented RWD tuner is trying to replicate. This is hard, precise, surgical and immensely satisfying. To begin to explore this car on a public road is by itself an admission that you believe yourself to be above the rules as they apply to normal drivers.

Mercedes moves R-Class production to AM General in Indiana

Go back a decade or two and you'd have seen the SUV market polarizing in opposite directions: hard-core off-roaders like the Hummer on the one hand, and passenger-focused crossovers like the Mercedes R-Class on the other. Now their fates are set to intertwine, at least as far as manufacturing is concerned. No longer producing Hummers, AM General (which designed and originally produced the Hummer) has been assigned the task of manufacturing the R-Class at its underused, 675,000 square-foot Commercial Assembly Plant in Mishawaka, IN – part of metropolitan South Bend. The decision was undertaken to allow Mercedes to free up production capacity at its plant in Tuscaloosa, AL, where it also produces the M-Class, GL-Class and C-Class, and where it will soon begin manufacturing the GLE Coupe. The vacation of the R-Class assembly line could be earmarked to make room for that new slant-roofed crossover (which was originally thought to be joining the Tuscaloosa plant as a fifth model) or could pave the way for another model to reach Alabama altogether. The multi-year arrangement to manufacture the R-Class makes AM General the first manufacturer contracted to build Mercedes-Benz vehicles in the US, but hardly the only one in the world. The G-Class – which could, incidentally, be characterized as the German equivalent of the Hummer – is built on Mercedes' behalf by Magna Steyr in Austria, and the company builds many of its passenger and commercial vehicles for local consumption under joint ventures in the Far East especially. The R-Class was first introduced in 2005, and though it's still built in America, it was removed from the company's US lineup back in 2012. However Mercedes confirms that, since 2013, it has been and remains available exclusively in China. That puts the R-Class in the rare position of being manufactured in the United States by (or now for) a foreign automaker but unavailable for sale here. AM General Selected As Mercedes-Benz First and Only Contract Manufacturer of Vehicles in the United States SOUTH BEND, Ind., Jan. 27, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- AM General LLC and Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, Inc., today announced that Mercedes-Benz has selected AM General to manufacture the Mercedes-Benz R-Class luxury vehicle at AM General's world-class 675,000 square-foot Commercial Assembly Plant.

Hummer EV could be part of GM's move into electric trucks and SUVs

WASHINGTON/DETROIT — General Motors plans to build a new family of premium electric pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles at its Detroit-Hamtramck plant beginning in late 2021, possibly reviving the imposing Hummer brand with some of them, several people familiar with the plans said. The so-called BT1 electric truck/SUV program is the centerpiece of a planned $3 billion investment in the Detroit-Hamtramck plant to make electric trucks and vans, and part of a broader $7.7 billion investment in GM's U.S. plants over the next four years, according to a proposed labor deal between the automaker and the United Auto Workers union. The investments were made public by the UAW on Friday, but no details were provided. The investment would move the automaker into a part of the EV market that is largely untested and where GM has a higher likelihood of turning a profit, analysts said. "It makes perfect sense to hit the high end of the market in order to generate some revenue that might actually turn a profit," Auto Forecast Solutions vice president of global vehicle forecasting Sam Fiorani said. GM is mirroring the approach electric carmaker Tesla took by starting in the high end and then moving down the price ladder, he said. That is important for a company who previously tried to sell the plug-in electric hybrid Chevrolet Volt and all-electric Bolt cars at lower prices and higher volumes, but failed to sell enough to make those efforts profitable, Fiorani said. The UAW's 48,000 GM hourly workers are scheduled to vote next week on the proposed contract that would end a monthlong strike that analysts say has cost the No. 1 U.S. automaker about $2 billion in lost profit. GM's BT1 program includes an electric pickup for the GMC brand and an electric SUV for Cadillac, both due in 2023, the sources said. Before then, GM plans to begin low-volume production in late 2021 of the first BT1 model, a pickup, under a different brand, the source said. A performance variant of the pickup will be added to that brand in 2022, followed by an electric SUV in 2023. One of the sources said the Hummer name is "under consideration," but a decision has not been finalized. The pickup is codenamed "Project O." Bringing back the Hummer name would take advantage of a still strongly recognized brand name, Fiorani said.