Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
A new calendar for 2011 is being produced celebrating the Hummer H2 – one of
And the glossy photographic masterpiece may be the closest fans of the vehicle will get to owning one in the kingdom as the last models have all been snapped up from the local dealership.
Hummer, a brand that became a symbol of excess in the late 1990s, has been shut down by General Motors. It came under attack from green campaigners and its popularity was hit by the spiralling cost of fuel in the
The calendar has been produced by popular motoring website 69 Pit Stop, which also published the best-selling car book entitled ‘Hummer H2 - King-size America’.
Sales manager Mike Dorn said: “Maybe most people would have expected a Ferrari or Porsche calendar but does it make sense to produce ‘No. 1,000’ of these calendars? I don’t think so!
“To work on the Hummer H2 has some kind of tradition for us since our company was also the publisher of the book.
“There are still so many fans of the Hummer all over the world that miss these cars very much. So we decided to do this calendar and have already received great feedback - the emails have been 100 per cent positive. In fact, we have already had the first orders although it’s quite a long time before the end of this year!
“Maybe it just works to make a calendar on a car that was killed by the GM managers. The manufacturing may be over but the heritage of this brand still lives on.”
The marque was spawned from a contract for US military vehicles won by AMC-Jeep before the brand was bought by GM.
A tentative deal struck between GM and the Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery firm for an estimated $150 million fell apart in February when the Chinese government did not green-light the plan.
Now the brand is officially being shuttered, as no other substantial offers have come to the table. Hummer CEO Jim Taylor retired and Hummer dealerships were notified of the decision.
The move to close the brand marked the end of GM’s marque overhaul that included the sale of Saab to Spyker and the closure of Pontiac and Saturn production. It appears to have paid off with new models introduced and the biggest quarterly profit posted in six years.
New Hummer buyers have been able to pick up cut-price models and National Motors, the dealer in Bahrain, has only three left which have been booked and are awaiting collection. Its showrooms in Sitra, however, are still regularly getting inquiries from fans of the vehicle.
“There is still a demand for the Hummer – the H2 in particular was always great fun to drive – we’ll miss it,” one motor executive told GulfWeekly.
“There is still a feeling in the industry that someone may step in even at this late stage and do a deal with GM.”
GM had previously announced that it would honour the duration of new Hummer vehicle warranties.
The island’s love affair with the Hummer is not restricted to the owners of the cherished vehicles – the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) became home to the world’s second Hummer Driving Academy.
Its fleet of 16 4x4s is operated 365 days a year by trained instructors who know everything there is to know about driving – and surviving – in the desert.
It has become an attraction for tourists and locals alike. First visitors are guided through the BIC’s on-site obstacle course. Then, when their skill and confidence is suitably boosted, drivers are taken around Bahrain’s desert trails: soft sand, extreme hills, rock crawling, gravel and unstable surfaces.
But, there is now much more to these courses than driving, it’s an opportunity to sample a slice of motoring nostalgia, the Hummer experience.
The calendar can be ordered by visiting www.69pitstop.com by clicking directly to the Hummer calendar section and following the instructions. The price is 25 Euros plus 10 Euros for shipping.
