May 24, 2010 – Hummer shuts down
On this day in 2010, rugged off-road and military automaker Hummer went defunct. The origins of the civilian Hummer can be traced to 1979 when the US Army put out word that they were seeking a “High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle,” or HMMWV. AM General designed a vehicle that met the Army’s requirements and was the first automaker to deliver a prototype. The first production style HMMWVs were delivered to the Army’s proving grounds in April 1982. Testing of the vehicle led to the Army awarding AM General with a contract to build 55,000 of the vehicles by 1985. The monetary value of the contract was $1.2 billion.
Above: A High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled VehicleTop: Hummer H3
By the 1980s, AM General, in part thanks to a pushy Arnold Schwarzenegger, had planned on sellin...