[dav305z]

I just have to disagree with you on this Mgescuro (for the record, I agree with you most of the time). Sometimes the niche for niche brands disappear, and it's not worth keeping them.

GM has been here before. Cars like GTO and Chevelle were virtual niche brands unto themselves in the 1960's - they had multiple engines and configurations, they sold in the hundreds of thousands. They brought many customers into Chevy and Pontiac showrooms. Then a terrible thing happened - their niche was totally obliterated. The cars hung on for a couple of years, growing more emasculated with each passing year, but failing to find owners none the less.

Worst of all is the damage Hummer does to GM's overall image. It's perceived as a gas guzzling, military-influenced truck brand. Right now we have $4 a gallon gas and are five years into an incredibly unpopular war (in which the insufficiently armored HumVee is more and more being cast as an image of inadequacy). Is this perception unfair? Perhaps. But it's a real perception that damages the entire GM brand, and fuels the fire of every Thomas Freedman who thinks the company is "dangerous." Put another way, Hummer is to GM what Donald Rumsfeld was to the Bush administration - a symbol of arrogance and failure.

Perhaps GM could turn it around -perhaps. They'll have to use resources that should be going toward building small and mid-sized cars - you know, the stuff people are buying right now. They would also have to steer the brand away from its well defined niche - a practice you profess to despise.

I fail to understand why finding a seller means the brand is actually worthwhile. I am certain that if the rights to the name "Cavalier" were put up for sale, someone would buy it. That doesn't mean GM should be building Cavaliers. There likely is a company out there with the focus and the business model to sell Hummers at a low volume and at a profit. That doesn't mean GM should keep it, let alone invest in it.