The Humvee bids the Hummer bye bye
Amid recent developments of General Motors' chapter 11 bankruptcy and its decision to sell the all-mighty Hummer brand to a Chinese company, there's a silver lining. And it's a big one.
The U.S. Army wanted to make it crystal clear Thursday that the HMMWV (widely known as "Humvee")--the original High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle that inspired the creation of the Hummer--will continue to be made in the United States, by an American-owned company.
According to Lt. Col. Martin Downie, the U.S. Army's spokesman, though the Army's Humvee and the civilian Hummer look similar and share a common appearance, the rights to produce those two different vehicles are no longer owned by the same company.
The manufacturer of the Humvee has always been AM General, an American company based in South Bend, Ind. The company produced the first 55,000 Humvees for the Army in 1985 and it continues today to produce the Humvee for the military.
In the early 1990s, AM General began producing a civilian version of the Humvee, calling it a "Hummer." By the late 1990s, AM General sold the Hummer name to General Motors.
It's important to note that if the deal goes through, Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company, the Chinese-based prospective buyer of the Hummer brand, will not have access to the military's Humvee, including its designs, unique performance capabilities, and technologies.
Nonetheless, there's one thing Sichuan Tengzhong for sure will gain access to and possibly take advantage of: the vehicle's capability to use a lot of gasoline in a short distance.
Dong Ngo is a CNET editor who covers networking and network storage, and writes about anything else he finds interesting. You can also listen to his podcast at insidecnetlabs.cnet.com. E-mail Dong.
As for your comments on buying big gas for