GM Terminated the Hummer. Will it Be Back?

By Spencer Jakab

"I'll be baahhck."

Arnold Schwarzenegger's famous line from the 1984 sci-fi classic "The Terminator" would be a perfect voice-over for a TV commercial. Not for a new gubernatorial campaign, but a General Motors car ad.

The Hummer superfan played a key role in the hulking vehicle being made available to civilians in the early 1990s. The original, military-style behemoth eventually gave way to the progressively smaller H2 and H3 models before it was discontinued when GM exited bankruptcy nearly a decade ago.

Now a revived Hummer could be coming to market. A Bloomberg report says that GM is considering an electric version of the infamously gas-guzzling SUV. For what it is worth, Mr. Schwarzenegger, who has become something of an environmentalist in recent years, personally beat the auto maker to the punch. In 2017 he paid for Austrian company Kreisel Electric to electrify his Hummer H1. They already had converted a Mercedes SUV for him and he mused that he might one day be able to fly across the ocean in an electric airplane.

Leave it to Mr. Schwarzenegger to popularize things with familiar skins but futuristic innards.

Write to Spencer Jakab at spencer.jakab@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 18, 2019 09:59 ET (13:59 GMT)

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