2008 Hummer H3 Base Sport Utility 4-door 3.7l on 2040-cars

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General Motors could turn Hamtramck into its electric pickup, SUV hub

Electric off-roaders could revitalize the Detroit-Hamtramck factory that General Motors previously announced it will close. While official details remain shrouded in secrecy, analysts believe the plant will be re-tooled to manufacture at least three electric models due out during the early 2020s. The plant's scheduled closure was one of the grievances the United Auto Workers (UAW) union cited when it embarked on a 40-day strike in September 2019. General Motors agreed to keep it open without shedding much light on what it planned to build there. Analyst at LMC Automotive told the The Detroit News they believe an often-rumored electric SUV that will resurrect Hummer's name, image, or both will be one of the models assigned to the Hamtramck plant. Battery-powered variants of the GMC Sierra and the Cadillac Escalade will be made there, too, as will an enigmatic van. LMC Automotive's Jeff Schuster believes the van will come first; it could enter production as early as 2021. The Hummer — which might also be offered as a pickup — will follow before the end of 2022, while the Sierra and the Escalade will both arrive in 2023. We're taking this report with a grain of salt, though, because only one of the aforementioned models has been announced by General Motors. Rumors of a Hummer resurrection emerged in the summer of 2019, just a few weeks before we heard unverified reports of a battery-powered variant of the next-generation Escalade. General Motors confirmed plans to enter the burgeoning electric pickup truck segment, which Ford, Rivian, and Tesla also have their sights on, but it hasn't detailed how or when. The van is a mystery. General Motors refused to comment on the report. It previously announced it will keep Hamtramck open, and invest $3 billion to build electric vehicles there. The investment will create 2,225 jobs. Inaugurated in February 1985, the Hamtramck factory has churned out a diverse selection of models over the past 34 years, including Cadillac's Eldorado, Seville, and Allante, the Oldsmobile Toronado, the Buick Riviera, and more recently, gasoline-electric Chevrolet Volt. General Motors announced plans to close Hamtramck in 2018, but it quickly backpedaled and extended its lease on life until 2020 by keeping the Chevrolet Impala and the Cadillac CT6 around for a few additional months.

2024 GMC Hummer EV SUV Edition 1 back on the market after charity auction

The charity auctions at this year's Barrett-Jackson event in Arizona pulled in the usual millions for good causes. Nevertheless, there were no shocking result among the sales like the 2023 Chevrolet Corvette VIN 001 that hammered for $3.7 million in 2022 or the 2022 GMC Hummer EV pickup VIN 001 that hammered for $2.5 million in 2021. In fact, the best result for hammer prices this year was a GMC Hummer EV SUV VIN001 that brought in $500,000, quite a ways down on its bedded sibling. Seems the purchaser decided a little bit of battery-electric arbitrage might be the play, because the SUV is going back up for sale. As caught by CarBuzz, a new member to the Hummer Chat forum started a thread, "Barrett Jackson VIN #1 SUV available." According to the poster who calls himself Bill, "Tread Lightly, the charity organization that the funds went to, aligns well with our company and we were excited to participate with them, however, the Hummer should go to a true enthusiast or collector." The post says Barrett-Jackson "is interested in" putting the Hummer in front of audiences at the Palm Beach auction event April 13-15 or at the Vegas event June 22-24. The vehicle's apparently been built and will be titled in Arizona. It's a loaded Edition 1 in Moonshot Green Matte with a Lunar Shadow interior and three motors making roughly 830 horsepower. There are transparent sky panels that open to create the open-air "Infinity Roof," 14-speaker Bose audio, Super Cruise, Crab Walk and Watts to Freedom mode. Naturally, the seller is willing to part with this bit of history before April and at first said he is ready to "consider a reasonable offer for the vehicle." We're not sure if that means more than $500,000. If so, and without the charity component — the reason these vehicles bring in so much money so often — we suspect such an asking price would be a tough draw. A look at Cars & Bids results for GMC Hummer EV pickups in Edition 1 trim shows prices that regularly surpassed $200,000 last summer are now down to around $160,000. However, two posts later, Bill says his company is "open to all offers."  The Hummer EV SUV Edition 1 retail version will reach begin reaching owners by the end of Q1 this year, which isn't far away. It cost $105,595 when it could be reserved.

GMC Hummer EV could have had the Chevrolet Avalanche's Midgate

One of the many rumors swirling around the GMC Hummer EV claimed the truck would resurrect the Midgate inaugurated by the original Chevrolet Avalanche. Although we now know there's no way to fully knock down the partition between the cab and the cargo box, the firm revealed the rumor wasn't entirely false. "There was [a Midgate] early on. We opted for the functionality of the drop glass in the back. With the package layout and things like that, it was not advantageous to pursue that one. And, the five-foot bed was kind of the industry standard in regards to price of entry in that segment," explained John Mack, the Hummer's exterior design management, during an interview with Muscle Car & Trucks. The Hummer will go on sale with a five-foot box, and it doesn't sound like a longer bed will be available, so a modern version of the Midgate would have made the model more versatile by giving users the ability to fold down the partition behind the rear seats to carry bulky items, like plywood and ATVs. It's a feature that would have inevitably made the truck more complicated to build, however, because it adds moving parts that need to be sealed. Hinges, seals, and latches in turn add weight, and complexity almost always invites high manufacturing costs. As an electric pickup built with newly-developed components, the Hummer already has enough of each. Motorists who need to carry something that's significantly longer than the cargo box aren't entirely out of luck. As Mack pointed out, the rear window drops into the partition, so owners will have the ability to haul surfboards, lumber, or anything else that's relatively long and reasonably thin by simply pushing a switch. Alternatively, the only thing limiting cargo space when the roof comes off is the sky — or, depending on where you live, bridges. Mack didn't reveal when the Midgate was dropped. GMC launched the Hummer project in April 2019, and it previously released early design sketches that show how the truck transitioned from a sketch to a prototype. As of writing, nothing suggests the Midgate will make a comeback in the near future on any member of the General Motors portfolio. It was introduced in 2001 on the first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche, which went on sale in the United States for the 2002 model year. It later spread to Cadillac's luxed-up variant of the truck, the Escalade EXT, and to the short-lived GMC Envoy XUV.