GM Mum on HUMMER Deal, Axes Pontiac

General Motors President and CEO Fritz Henderson held a media conference this morning to discuss the progress on their viability plan. While HUMMER wasn’t a main focus of the talk, Henderson did reiterate that a sale is likely and that GM is currently considering several offers. When taking questions, Henderson hinted that even if HUMMER is sold, GM would not handle production of new models after 2009.

Henderson spent most of the time discussing how GM would accelerate their restructuring plan, and confirmed Pontiac would be phased out by 2010, and that HUMMER, Saab, and Saturn models would not be produced by GM past 2009.

Also discussed was a dealer body reduction from 6246 to 3605 by the end of 2010, a 42% reduction. Henderson said that affected dealers would be contacted soon about their options and what GM was offering. HUMMER dealers should be largely unaffected by this move since whoever purchases the brand would assume the dealer liability.

Even though GM said that they expected to have an announcement by the end of April, given their past history of blowing deadlines, we remain skeptical that an announcement will come in the next four days.