(first posted 1/9/2018)
(Read Part 1 here)
Since GM’s bankruptcy restructuring, the number of brands in its menagerie has shrunk dramatically. Hummer, Saab and Saturn all went to the same automotive graveyard as Geo and Oldsmobile before them, and their products have become orphans. In turn, those products’ special editions and limited-run models are well down the path to obscurity. Let’s take a look at five of them.
Hummer H3 Tactical
Years produced: 2007
Total production: ?
Certain cars acquire certain images, whether unfairly or not. Who amongst us hasn’t heard the enduring stereotypes of Corvettes being mid-life crisis-mobiles, of the Toyota Prius being owned only by smug greenies, of BMWs being driven by arrogant douchebags that don’t follow road rules. So, too, did the Hummer brand acquire an image for being driven by obnoxious braggarts, contemptuous of the environment and perpetually self-aggrandizing.
Perhaps the brand’s reputation, more so than GM’s financial situation or rising gas prices, was what ultimately did it in. But if you look past the unpalatable image and the hot-pink H2 stretch limousines, you can see where GM was taking the brand: to Jeep’s home turf. The H3 Tactical was one step towards that goal (the rumored, aborted H4 was a more consequential step).
Jeep, after all, had become king of special editions. Remember the Wrangler Tomb Raider? Well, GM wanted to create the same kind of buzz and the Tactical was the H3’s first special edition.
Hummer owners had been stereotyped by some as being all hat and no cattle. The owners took after their vehicles, then. Despite the eco-unfriendly image of the Hummer brand, the H3 was powered by the same milquetoast five-cylinder engine as in the Chevrolet Colorado, producing just 242 hp and 242 ft-lbs. Despite this, EPA-estimated gas mileage was an abysmal 14/18 mpg due to a 4700-pound curb weight.
The Tactical edition was merely an appearance special, with a body-color grille, black brush guard and unique black wheels, among other black accenting. Color choices were limited to gray, black or red. The Tactical edition wasn’t available with the H3’s Adventure off-road suspension package so it was best if your tactics involved the use of roads and other paved surfaces. And it was best if your tactics didn’t involve blending in—why on Earth would GM paint something called “Tactical Edition” bright red?
Hummer H3T
Years produced: 2009-10
Total production: 2,738
Had Hummer not been sold off by a corporate parent going through bankruptcy proceedings, the H3T might have gone on to have a longer, more fruitful life. Alas, the same fate befell the H3T as it did the Saturn Astra, Pontiac G8 and Pontiac Solstice Coupe.
The Tactical edition had been Hummer’s response to the endless parade of Jeep special editions. The H3T, however, offered something Jeep didn’t, something Jeep hadn’t had for around two decades—a pickup bed.
The H3T had been preceded by the H2 SUT and followed the same formula: take an existing Hummer and give it a pickup bed. A Jeep pickup has been rumored for years but has never come to fruition, although one is tipped to launch next year. Let’s hope Jeep learns from the H3T’s flaws.
Firstly, the H3T was a victim of bad timing. Fuel prices were soaring, the economy was struggling, and GM was in a precarious financial situation. Conventional pickup trucks weathered the storm after a couple of years of reduced – if still exceptionally high – sales figures. One wonders if the H3T would have been so fortunate considering it was much less practical.
Based on the mid-size Chevrolet Colorado pickup, the crew cab-only H3T was 23 inches longer than the H3 SUV and just 18 inches shorter than a crew cab Chevrolet Silverado and around 5 inches narrower. Engines were the same as the regular H3: the 3.7 I5, or a 5.3 V8 in the H3T Alpha with 300 hp and 320 ft-lbs. With a curb weight of 5000 pounds, the I5 was woefully underpowered and not particularly economical. The V8, however, was $6k more and automatic-only.
The H3T, when equipped with the Adventure off-road suspension package, could rock crawl far better than any Silverado thanks to its front and rear-locking differentials and 33-inch off-road tires. Ah, but what if you wanted a truck so you could haul things? This is where the H3T fell down, with a narrow and shallow bed. Payload was utterly unimpressive: 1150 pounds with the base I5, and even less (1015) with the optional V8. That was 200-300 less than a Ford Explorer Sport Trac and, astonishingly, 400-500 pounds less than a Honda Ridgeline. The H3T also failed the 4-by-8 plywood sheet test, while critics were quick to point out getting a quad or dirt bike in the bed – as commonly pictured in Hummer’s marketing materials – proved to be a difficult endeavor due to a high lift-over height.
As an alternative to a H3 for a buyer with additional hauling needs, the H3T made sense. As an alternative to any other pickup truck, it really didn’t. Let’s hope Jeep does a better job.
Geo Storm hatch
Years produced: 1991-92
Total production: ?
Geo was GM’s way of getting import intenders into their showrooms by offering them the small, fuel-efficient cars they desired. Well, one of their ways: Saturn had a similar mission, as did Canada’s Passport and Asuna marques. The execution, however, was very different: Geo was a rag-tag group of imports based on Suzukis, Toyotas and Isuzus.
Isuzu Gemini hatch
The Storm hatch was an Isuzu Gemini hatchback back home in Japan. Although the Storm coupe had a short, four-year run, the hatchback was even shorter-lived.
Arriving a year after the coupe in 1991, the hatchback featured cute, quirky Kammback styling. It appeared to harken back to the Volvo P1800 in that it was a more practical, wagon-esque companion to a popular coupe. The Storm was no hot hatch, however: the hatch was available only with the Storm’s less-powerful engine, a fuel-injected 1.6 four with 95 hp and 97 ft-lbs, while the coupe had a cooking GSi variant with 35 more horses. Both engines were noisy, but only the GSi’s 1.8 was fast.
Photo courtesy of Mr Choppers
The Storm hatch appealed to buyers seeking a more practical option than the coupe. Indeed, headroom was improved by 4.3 inches, making the rear seat a more tolerable place to be even if legroom was unchanged. Those rear side windows also popped out or could be removed altogether, making for an airier cabin. But the Storm was still a smallish (163.4 inch long), three-door hatchback. Many buyers in the market for a small, sporty runabout may have preferred the coupe’s rakish styling, and the coupe also had a hatchback. Those seeking a practical, efficient compact might have preferred the five-door Prizm, which undercut the Storm hatch on price. The Storm hatch, therefore, occupied a very small niche. Its arrival didn’t boost sales and it was booted from the Geo lineup after just two model years.
Saab 9-7X Aero
Years produced: 2008-09
Total production: ~500-600
Ah, Saab. Manufacturers of efficient, compact, front-wheel-drive hatchbacks purchased by New England professors. Producers of smartly styled convertibles purchased by the young and upwardly mobile. Sellers of… body-on-frame, LS2-powered, Ohio-built muscle SUVs?!
Yes, indeed. We’ve covered before the stories of the Saab 9-2x and 9-7X, hastily rebadged Saabs sourced from the GM extended family. The latter was the more tone-deaf of the two, the first SUV to wear the Saab badge.
It’s not that having a Saab SUV was a bad business decision – Rolls-Royce and Lamborghini are launching SUVs soon, after all – but the 9-7X was simply a heavily massaged GMT-360 mid-size SUV. Yes, it was the best GMT-360 but it was supposed to do battle with vastly more modern and refined German and Japanese crossovers.
Sales never amounted to much, unsurprisingly. Perhaps to spur interest in the 9-7X line, GM decided to Saab-ify the TrailBlazer SS. This hot muscle truck had become easily the most memorable member of the TrailBlazer family thanks to its aggressive styling tweaks and its 6.0 LS2 V8, which pumped out 395 hp and 400 ft-lbs. This engine was brought over mostly unchanged to the 9-7X – detuned only slightly by 5 hp and 5 ft-lbs – and the flagship Aero designation was dusted off, even though past Aeros had used much smaller, turbocharged engines.
Other than polished 20-inch wheels and a 1-inch lower ride height, the Aero didn’t look much different from a regular 9-7X. This made these trucks terrific sleepers, something helped by the paint job—you could have any color you wanted, as long as it was charcoal. The LS2 could haul 4800 pounds of Made-in-Ohio truck to 60 mph in under 6 seconds. The gas station shortly followed, with the mandatory four-speed automatic and aforementioned hefty curb weight resulting in a dismal 12/16 mpg.
Ah, but who cares? At $49k, the 9-7X Aero blew the doors off of any other luxury SUV or crossover at that price point and handled surprisingly well for a body-on-frame truck with a live rear axle. Besides, nobody was paying $49k for these with all the incentives around at the time. The only fly in the ointment was the 9-7X cost around $10k more than a TrailBlazer SS but, while still inferior to rival luxury SUVs, the 9-7X’s interior was vastly better than that of the Chevy and the features list was longer.
Today, these Aeros are mostly forgotten. If you see one for cheap, buy it, if only so you can say you own an LS2-powered Saab.
Saturn SL Homecoming
Years produced: 1994, 1999
Total production: 3500 (1994), 4000 (1999)
Saturn was marketed as a different kind of car company, with a separate retail network from the rest of GM, no-haggle pricing, and a dedicated factory in Spring Hill, Tennessee. Another way Saturn stood out from other GM divisions – and other car companies – was its homecoming event in 1994. To commemorate this weekend picnic/concert/reunion/PR goldmine, Saturn introduced a commemorative Homecoming Edition of the SL2 sedan.
Homecoming Editions wore unique pearl opalescent paint and leather-and-cloth seats. Other niceties included a leather-wrapped steering wheel, alloy wheels and fog lamps, plus the usual equipment found on the top-spec SL2 trim and its option packages.
44,000 Saturn owners and employees – some from as far as Taiwan – made the trip in 1994 to Spring Hill. Saturn may have been unprofitable but they had fostered tremendous loyalty from their owners, as well as their salaried ‘retailers’ (salespeople) and workers. At the Homecoming, Saturn workers all wore jerseys with a ‘2’ on the back—because the owners were “number one”. Hokey, yes, but how many other car companies could get 44,000 people to show up in one place and pay admission? In the middle of summer, no less!
It stood to reason that Saturn would throw a follow-up event, which they did in 1999. Once again, there was a commemorative S-Series and once again, it was a loaded SL2 sedan with unique paint (now “Gold Green”) and cloth-and-leather seating. Unlike the first SL2 Homecoming, which came equipped with a five-speed manual, the ’99 model had the four-speed automatic as standard. There were also special badges and a unique gauge cluster.
Saturn needed larger vehicles to give their loyal customers something to move to but, as GM furnished the brand accordingly, Saturn’s vehicles became less unique. Although retailers held events and the Spring Hill factory remained open for tours, there would be no more Homecomings after 1999.
In the following (and final) instalments of this series, we’ll be looking at some obscure Chryslers and Jeeps. Stay tuned.
Related Reading:
Car Show Classic: 1991 Isuzu Impulse RS- Diesel? No Dude, Turbo!
Curbside Classic: 1993 Saturn SL – GM’s Deadly Sin #4 – The Eulogy
COAL: 2005 Saab 9-2X Aero: I Prefer My Sushi With A Side Of Lingonberry Sauce
CC Capsule: 2011 Saab 9-4x 3.0i XWD Premium – The Holy Grail
It’s hokey, but the Saturn Homecoming again makes me feel like to some extent, GM was onto something with their concept for Saturn. The boutique brand-as-lifestyle thing is something other companies have since managed to do with great success (Apple probably foremost among them) and isn’t something any of GM’s existing lower-priced brands could have managed. Obviously, they flubbed the execution in a bunch of ways, but I don’t know that the project was fundamentally misguided.
HUMMER, though — yikes.
Very minor note: The shooting brake Volvo was the 1800ES. (If you want to be really pedantic, the “P1800” designation really applied only to the early British-built cars; Swedish-built coupes were called 1800S and later 1800E.)
Ah yes, Hummer. The only automobile brand to be a target of eco-terrorists.
Unfortunately for GM, this was the one brand they dropped that they should have kept. It was selling, and once they got thru the government bailout, given the current market, it would have sold like the proverbial hotcakes. So what if it didn’t make a damned bit of sense, and was at best incredibly mediocre?
What else would a truly hard-core, global warming disbeliever, Trumpie want to be seen in? The best way possible to piss off liberals while driving to the gun range. This was the brand where dropping it wasn’t a business decision. It was political. You want the bailout, those damned things have to go.
It was hazardous to the environment but I think the design was a bigger sin. Just..yech..no.
I’d appreciate not seeing politics in a car blog.
Not trying to bring politics into the blog. What I was doing is mentioning who the car would appeal to (definitely not me). And showing why it would still be selling well today had it not been dropped.
Whether or not GM intended it, ownership of a Hummer did become a political statement.
You have the demographic down just about right. As for selling well today, I think it would have a small cadre of diehard adherents, but not nearly enough to sustain the branD.
I think of it the other way around – the H2 was a mercy killing, well before the late ’00s spike in gas prices it had stopped being an “It” Car, everybody who wanted one (and could afford it) already had one, and the hate the H2 brought down on the whole brand had poisoned the well. Not just from environmentalists, but from off-road purists who pointed out that it carried over all the off-road drawbacks of the H1 (too big and wide for dense forests/rock crawling, only really good for open desert) with none of the advantages.
It would’ve been better to keep the H2 as a concept/show car only (and toys! There were so many Hummer toys…) and widely launch the brand with the H3.
I do often wonder what the H4 would have been like. That probably would have been the desirable one.
In the areas that I lived and moved around in, it seemed like a large proportion of H2 owners were small business types using the H2 as the company car for their: gun shop/range, gym, ‘tactical training’ outfit, custom car shop, personal training company, etc.
“I do often wonder what the H4 would have been like”
Probably like another Opel? 🙂
I’ve long thought the GMC Terrain was meant to be a Hummer and changed divisions when they pulled the plug, well after the design had gone to tooling. Much like the “Edsel” Comet and “Eagle” Chrysler 300M before it.
Yep, if I wanted an SUV a Hummer could very well be the ticket for just that reason. Though they’ve been out of production a long time now so I’m not sure driving one would still have the desired effect on the target audience.
The Saab 9-7X is a really odd duck. It’s about the most un-Saab like vehicle I can imagine this side of a Charger Hellcat.
This is a tough call between Pontiac and Hummer. On sheer volume and brand-recognition, Pontiac is the easy winner.
But considering how the hottest vehicle market has been SUVs and, right now, CUVs are the hot ticket, there might actually be something to the notion that, of all the divisions that were killed off during the GM bankruptcy, Hummer might have been the one to keep.
Of course, no one could have foretold the explosion of the CUV market back then. But a small Hummer CUV (maybe off the Equinox and/or Trax chassis) would have been perfect to do battle with those that Jeep, Toyota, Honda, et al, seem to be selling by the boatloads.
Much more obscure would by the counterpart of the Geo Storm sold just one year in Canada by Pontiac-Buick dealers, the Asüna Sunfire.
http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1075146_guilty-pleasure-asna-sunfire
Pas tellement impressionnant . On comprend pourquoi elle est rester obscure.
It is more interesting that once gas prices dropped to their current levels, the Hummers crawled out of storage and back onto the streets. See more of them now than when they were made.
I’ve seen a couple of the H2s in the last few months. They were being driven by the same kind of folks who would have bought a small-mid sized SUV but wanted something that was “different”.
I had forgotten about the H3 Tactical. I always wondered who bought H3s.
I have always been intrigued by the Saabravada. I was always kind of half surprised that old GM never tried building this vehicle as an Opel for Europe and as a Jr Escalade..
My sister actually bought an H3. She owned it all of one week. Not sure what endeared her to it (probably the styling), but once she discovered that she couldn’t see out of it (neither could I in the one time I drove it), she got rid of it. In possibly one of the most jarring automotive transitions ever, she went to a Buick Rendezvous after.
My next door neighbor still drives one. He is a large and crass individual with questionable judgement, so the vehicle suits him well.
“BMWs being driven by arrogant douchebags that don’t follow road rules” – Hmmm…. we’re not all like that I swear.
Great vehicle features though. I had completely forgot about the Storm hatchback and 9-7X Aero, and wasn’t even aware of either of those particular H3 variants.
Damn though, that Storm hatchback is very good looking.
So what did you replace the 2-Series with?
I thought the same thing of BMW drivers – until I owned one. I then discovered a big reason why BMW drivers get the stereotype, and that’s because it’s so ‘easy’ to drive a BMW much faster than just about anything else on the road. I used to pass left- and middle-lane traffic by sliding over to the empty right-lane (where all these schmoes should have been) with nary a thought. I have no doubt that everyone in the clot of slow-moving traffic watched me as I went by and thought, “jackass BMW driver”, even though I hadn’t been going all that much faster. The ease with which such maneuvers were possible was actually somewhat unnerving and, really, the only vehicle I’ve ever owned that I was most comfortable at speed.
OTOH, I just passed a van in the left-lane that had been rear-ended by a BMW…
Ah, the Geo Storm Hatch. I bought one once because it was cheap and the A/C worked. In my first comment ever here a few years back, I described how I turned it into a “BMGeo” by adding BMW 325e wheels and badges from a friend’s that he wrecked, smoking the taillights with flat black paint, and having “316Ti” vinyl badges made up for it. Drove it for about 3 months, during which time the A/C quit, then the timing belt snapped. I towed it home and sold it for what I paid for it.
Geo Storm hatch? Well you got me on that one, I have never seen one of these and didn’t know that they existed!
Interesting that you compare the Geo Storm Kammback to a Volvo 1800 ES, my thought was that the Gemini version looked VERY close to a Volvo 480E….at least I think that is what it was called.
It was called 480 ES.
A few months ago, I saw two of the Hummer H3T within several miles of each other on I-84 in Connecticut.
GM also had something with the Storm, it sold fairly well, and got younger buyers into Chevy showrooms.
But, Isuzu cut car production and became ‘trucks only’ and Storm died off. I remember a few people at later Auto Shows asking Chevy reps “where is the Storm?”
Sadly the Storm was a victim of its success. It sold so well at prices that were lower then the Impulse that nobody bought the Impulse so Isuzu packed up their tent and that was it for the Storm.
It really was the Japanese Asset Price Bubble that took Isuzu out of passenger cars. It burst in early 1992, and had drastically strong effects to Isuzu. They pulled out of passenger car production at the end of 1993 as a result.
I did like the Storm hatch better than the coupe, as it looked better and I presume it had better utility due to the extra cargo space.
Of the Geo Storm hatchback’s fraternal twin, I remember when the U.S.-Market, 2nd-generation Isuzu Impulse came out c. ’91 to replace the original, really beautiful, Giugiaro-designed coupes… and being disappointed. I’m glad to know that in their home market, this basic design was now called the “Gemini Coupe” instead of the old name of “Piazza”. Based solely on looks, the two generations of Impulse just seemed like a completely different class of vehicle.
The two special edition Saturns make me sad! This was the era I remember, when Saturn seemed like a big deal, everyone who had one loved theirs, and they had these homecoming events. This was the era when it seemed like there was still so much promise.
In Japan, it wasn’t that simple, actually. The coupe was sold as 3 separate models. The Gemini OZ coupe came with either the basic Storm 1.6 SOHC or as the all-wheel drive 1.8 DOHC Turbo in Irmscher form. Then there was the Pa Nero, which had the original Storm front end and was 1.6 DOHC powered. The last was the Piazza Nero. This one was the 1.8 DOHC model, had the Impulse front, and also had four wheel steering and Lotus suspension.
As an aside, the US received the Impulse in the hatch body style as well in 1992. Same 1.8 DOHC motor as the Storm GSi. They are very, very rare being a one-year only model.
The Geo Storm was supposedly one of the most girly cars ever. A C&D road test mentioned that the majority of Geo Storm owners were single women aged 18 to 25, 50% of whom lived with their parents. I think the only car in the US that skewed more heavily female was the VW Rabbit convertible, especially the all white version.
Nailed it! Exactly my recollection as well, although to be fair I think that sterotype held true for the entire Geo lineup, not just the Storm. There were a number of girls in my high school (class of ‘94) who had Storms. A few Metro convertibles, too. And I was friends with a girl who had a white VW cabrio as well. Simpler times…
By the time I finished college it seemed the VW Jetta had usurped them all as the ‘girly’ car of choice.
True confessions: I find both the H3 and, especially, the 9-7X hugely appealing. A friend of mine actually owns an H3; since I’ve known him he’s had a 911, and several V8 BMWs so it surprised me when he bought the H3. It followed a Land Rover Discovery , Ranger Rover and Touareg as the SUV in his stable, and has lasted longer than the previous three put together. He actually offered to sell me the Hummer, after he bought an X3, but the 5 cylinder auto trans combo plus lack of the offroad package, combined with really limited passenger and cargo room, turned me off. It was quite pleasant to drive though, for a domestic SUV.
It cracked me up that GM went to the trouble of taking the contemporary corporate GM key fob and putting it into an all-in-one casing for the 9-7X, as well as mounting the ignition in the center console, as was typical of Saab vehicles.
Agreed. GM spent quite a lot of money that it didn’t have to waste on Saabifying the GMT360 for what SOMEONE must have surely realized would be negligible returns.
As for the 9-7X itself, it and its cross-town rivals, the Aspen and Aviator, were *decent* vehicles, but not luxury cars by any means. They paled in comparison to, say, the GX470.
I was quite liking the Geo Storm until I saw the rear….
yes, the Saturn Homecoming was a bit contrived but so was the Hummer, all of them, at least to my eyes.
I really enjoyed reading this installment and part I, too. I hope you can feature similar posts on other marque’s obscure models!
I had no idea a H3T existed and then low and behold, what do I see less than two weeks later at a local restaurant? It had temporary plates on it, the happy looking lady (pan in) must have recently procured it from Ames Ford.
Our local Ford dealer seems to get their fair share of odd and oddly high-end vehicles at auctions, I suspect. Surely not from the local trade in market…
It’s nothing to see late model Porsches, BMWs and Mercedes, et al on their used lot.
Frozen Walmart sushi
Onion flavored breakfast cereal
A Chevy Blazer Saab
These are some things that should have never entered the human mind.
You forgot about canned Chun King chow mein. I’d fight the dog for the last can of Alpo before I’d eat that crap.
Re: “Had Hummer not been sold off by a corporate parent going through bankruptcy proceedings…”
GM didn’t actually sell Hummer off. They tried, first to a Chinese concern, then after that deal collapsed, they announced it was still for sale and had several offers of interest, none of which came to fruition, so GM would up retaining the Hummer brand assets when they wound down production for that division.
Now of course, the new GM has revived Hummer as a sub-brand of GMC for EV trucks.