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Junkyard Gem: 2006 Hummer H3 SUV

After General Motors bought the rights to the Hummer brand from AM General in 1999, it continued to sell the civilianized versions of the military HMMWV that was made famous after appearing in the heavily televised Operation Desert Storm. The Hummer H1 (as it became known) never sold in large numbers, but The General decided to make everyman Hummers based on existing GM truck platforms. The Silverado-based H2 came first, debuting as a 2003 model, followed by the Colorado-based H3 as a 2006 model. Here's one of those first-year H3s, found in a Denver self-service car graveyard recently. Now it's time for some Hummer brand history. After the American Motors Corporation bought Kaiser Jeep in 1970, it spun off the fleet and military parts of that operation into a new company called AM General. The best-known AM General products for many years were the Jeep DJ Dispatchers, generally called "Mail Jeeps," and they were sold all the way through 1984. 1984 was also the year that the United States Army put the first AM General-built High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWV, which soldiers pronounced "Humvee" at first but eventually adopted the "Hummer" nickname). Around the same time, militarized VW-powered sand rails were being purchased from Chenowth by Uncle Sam. After Arnold Schwarzenegger convinced AM General to build civilianized Hummers, sales of the not-so-civilized brute that became the H1 began in 1992. The H2 and H3 had the misfortune to be launched just before the Great Recession hit and fuel prices went crazy, while a couple of overseas conflicts that were much less popular than Gulf War I made grim headlines and reduced the street appeal of combat-inspired civilian wheels. The H1 got the axe in 2006; GM tried and failed to sell the Hummer brand to a Chinese manufacturer in 2010, as it struggled through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, finally giving up and killing the brand alongside Pontiac, Saturn and Saab. Then the Hummer name was revived in 2022 as an electron-fueled GMC model, and you can buy a 2024 GMC Hummer EV SUV right now (though GMC's website warns of "LIMITED AVAILABILITY" in big red letters, so you might have a hard time actually taking delivery of one). The final 2010 H3s were built for Avis at Shreveport Operations, which itself shut down two years later.

GMC shows how the 2022 Hummer could have looked even more futuristic

Excitement filled the room when GMC asked its designers to resurrect the Hummer in April 2019, but a tinge of uneasiness permeated the department after executives locked in an early 2020 unveiling date. Luckily, stylists knew what they wanted early on in the development phase, and preliminary design sketches give us a fascinating look at how they shaped the electric off-roader that ended up making its global debut online in October 2020. Hummer, the brand, unceremoniously shut down in 2010 after General Motors failed to sell it to the Chinese, but its design DNA was so strong that stylists were able to pick up where their predecessors left off. All of the sketches published on Instagram by the official General Motors Design account show a boxy truck with a tall front end, a short windshield, and a generous amount of ground clearance. These styling cues trace their roots to the AM General Humvee that entered production in 1984 and made its combat debut when the United States invaded Panama in 1989. Even the wildest drawings still depict a pickup that's immediately recognizable as a Hummer. Most of the early design sketches wear some variation of the seven-slot grille that characterized Hummer's production models; it's a styling cue that hints at a heritage shared with Jeep under the American Motors Corporation (AMC) umbrella. Oddly, none wear the round headlights seen on the H2, the H3, and the HX concept that nearly became the H4. Was GMC afraid that its Hummer would end up looking too much like a Jeep? And, at least one sketch shows a fold-down windshield, a feature that will not make it to the assembly line. Sketches never reach production without modifications made in the name of packaging and safety concerns, and the Hummer is no exception, but stylists did a good job of reinventing the brand's design language without copying or erasing the past. If the company had stuck around long enough to make a second- and a third-generation H2, odds are it would look a lot like the GMC-branded model that will enter production in a year. GMC remains on track to start 2022 Hummer deliveries in late 2021, though it told Green Car Reports that it still hasn't built a fully functional prototype yet. When it arrives, this outdoorsy pickup will land in a burgeoning segment of the truck market that numerous models (including the Rivian R1T and Ford's electric F-150) will also call home.

Texas sues GM, saying it tricked customers into sharing driving data sold to insurers

Texas filed a lawsuit Tuesday against GM over years of alleged abuse of customers' data and trust. New car owners were presented with a "confusing and highly misleading" process that was implied to be for their safety, but "was no more than a deceptively designed sales flow" that surrendered their data for GM to sell. The suit contends that at no point was selling driving data ever even suggested as a possibility, putting GM in violation of the state's consumer protection laws. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking a jury trial and at least $10,000 per offense (every GM car sold in the state since 2015) and a hefty add-on of $250,000 in cases where the victim was over 65. Texas seems to be flying high after a recent $1.4 billion settlement from Meta over other privacy concerns. This may well be a way to solve any pending budgetary issues in the Lone Star State.