HUMMER Taking Hollywood Approach to Business

Since there’s no such thing as a one-stop-shop in Hollywood for movie-making, producers often put together teams tailored to a film’s specific production needs. According to Automotive News, if a sale of HUMMER is completed, CEO Jim Taylor will approach business in a similar way by keeping his main staff small and contracting out as much as possible.

HUMMER is planning on keeping its headquarters in the U.S. though it won’t be a huge operation, with Taylor expecting the HUMMER brand to have around 100 employees. This is completely different than what HUMMER is used to. Under GM, HUMMER had the direct or indirect support of thousands upon thousands of GM staffers. Taylor says that he won’t have a large bureaucracy of engineers and marketers, but will rather hire talent on a contract basis to execute projects.

Those projects include vehicles like the H4 based on the HX Concept. While no official price or mileage information has been released, the H4 is expected to be priced in the mid to upper 20’s and have fuel economy numbers to match. It’s largely expected that the H4 will be the next entirely new vehicle HUMMER produces, but Taylor says HUMMER will have its own plant by that time. Until then, HUMMER will contract vehicle production to GM.

Taylor also stressed that the new company, Sichuan Tengzhong, will function more as a private equity financier rather than a hands-on operator. If the deal goes through, it is expected to be complete by September 30th of this year.

Source: Automotive News (subscription req’d)