A beastly Hummer H3 SUV, seen on a car market in Beijing in 2019, parked across the street from a combined Alfa Romeo Tesla shop. The enormous Hummer was in a fine shape, painted in black and fitted with a big shiny factory bull bar.
The Hummer H3 was produced from 2005 until 2010. It was based on the same platform as the Chevrolet Colorado/GMC Canyon pickup trucks. The Hummer H3 was officially sold in China by General Motors. For a while in the mid-2000’s the Hummer brand was very popular here, with H2’s and H3’s all over the place.
In 2010, when GM was in big financial trouble, the thus far completely unknown Chinese company Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery tried to buy the Hummer brand for $150 million but the deal fell through, and GM shut down Hummer the same year. GM is probably happy about the failed deal now, because earlier this year they resurrected Hummer as an EV sub-brand.
The H3 I saw had cool Terminator badges on the front doors and on the back. They looked professional enough but I don’t know of any ‘Terminator’ special edition or such. If you know more, please let me know in the comments below.
The interior was in a fine shape, with classy black brown leather seats and door trim, and the original infotainment system.
The Hummer H3 was sold in China from 2005 until 2009, and Hummer even sold the H3T pickup truck. The H3 was available with the 245 hp 3.7 liter L5 and the 305 hp 5.3 liter V8, both engines were mated to a 4-speed automatic transmission, sending horses to all four wheels.
Price of the Hummer H3 in China started at 780.000 yuan and ended at 850.000 yuan. At the time, that was about three times as much as the H3 cost in the United States. About 1/3thof that went to the Chinese treasury in the from of import taxes, the rest went straight to GM coffers. They made huge margins on these Hummer trucks.
From 2015 or so Hummers started to disappear from the streets of Beijing, as their dirty engines were no able to pass the obligatory annual emissions tests, and there also was somewhat of a social backlash against the big gas guzzling Hummers. Whether the new Hummer EV comes to China is yet unknown.
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