GM plans high-powered Hummer
Firm plans to add power, improve emissions and off-road capabilities of $100,000 H1
By Ed Garsten / The Detroit News
DETROIT — The brawniest SUV is about to get brawnier when General Motors Corp. gives its Hummer line a high performance makeover next year. The Hummer H1 Alpha will go on sale next spring — bringing high-performance to the off-road brand.
The 2006 H1 Alpha’s 205-horsepower gasoline engine will be replaced with a 310-horsepower Duramax diesel powerplant. The new engine will give the $100,000 H1 more power and off-road capabilities while lowering emissions and enhancing fuel economy.
The Alpha format could potentially spread to the rest of the Hummer product line.
GM partner AM General Corp. will stop building the conventional H1 this fall, then build H1 Alpha’s exclusively starting early in 2005, said Hummer spokesman David Caldwell.
“With sales of only about 400 H1s a year, do we really need two flavors of that ice cream?” Caldwell said.
One flavor Hummer hasn’t offered to date is anything smaller than the H2, which tore up the marketplace when it was introduced two years ago, but has since cooled.
GM confirmed Tuesday it will build the H3, a mid-size SUV that will arrive at dealerships in the first half of 2005 as a 2006 model.
It will be priced at about $30,000 and make the Hummer brand more affordable.
In an interview last month, Hummer General Manager Mike DiGiovanni said there’s no chance Hummer will grow any bigger than the H1, but it could shrink smaller than the H3 in size and price.
“We could go down market,” DiGiovanni said, “but it has to be a real Hummer.”
