With a surge in SUV sales and gas prices in the U.S. plummeting to five-year lows, some people are looking back and remembering the symbol of the mid-2000s: Hummer.
In a recent AutoNews piece, some dealers are looking at the demand for light trucks in the U.S. and arrive at the conclusion that General Motors should’ve stuck with Hummer, instead of canceling it along with Pontiac and Saturn at the height of its Chapter 11 reorganization.
The reasoning? Jeep.
Chrysler has Jeep posting huge sales gains and the ability to sell every Wrangler they make. That model, and the core Cherokee and Grand Cherokee vehicles have helped propel sales up 44% in the U.S. through November.
With some analysts predicting fuel prices to fall below $2 per gallon in parts of the U.S. by the end of 2014, some might feel Hummer was killed too soon, like dealer Joe Serra who now has a Jeep franchise to retain some of his nearly 1,500 Hummer customers, according to Automotive News.
I look at GMC and still think it was right to get rid of Hummer. If it were around today, it would still look like a symbol of American excess that looked so deeply irrational at the height of the recession – and still isn’t the same. Americans may be buying more SUVs, but they’re mostly crossovers that have no more off-road prowess than an all-wheel drive wagon. And even off-road capable Cherokees and Grand Cherokees have a larger road-going bias than ever before and post significantly better fuel economy figures than their counterparts did a decade ago.
GM could still be doing something to give GMC a Wrangler rival, though. And that’s the right amount of Hummer heritage that could satisfy both customers and dealers.
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