[Aubs]

Flash off-road has an interesting bit in their "Rumors and Gossip Section":

The Hummer H1 is Dead 5/18/2006

The story gets better every day. Here's an email I received today:
I just spoke with someone who had just come out of face-to-face meetings with AMG personnel. Apparently, AMG has expected to get screwed by GM all along and has had contingency plans in place. They will continue to produce the H1, just not the Alpha. It will go back to the 6.5L TD. It may take a year or two to re-establish a dealer network and sell them, but they have sufficient fleet orders to produce 600-800 units per year right now. I'm told to expect an announcement or press release from AM General at some time in the future correcting the misinformation that has been coming out of GM.
If you carefully read the AMG press release it only says the Alpha will be discontinued.
On the other hand I also heard this from a Hummer Dealer:
I wanted to at least give some input on the recent bad news. I won't go into a lot of my personal views but most at GM and the dealer body see this as a positive thing for them.

I have talked to AM General and they have told me there will be no H1s for the US civilian market at all in the future. The problem is the EPA. Neither the current Duramax nor the 6.5 meets the '07 EPA standards. They had already discontinued the "K" series with the 6.5 a couple of months ago for this reason. The expense to certify the Duramax or the 6.5 is very high and the sales volume does not justify the expense. Roughly 636 Alphas total were ordered by dealers and this was to cover 2 sales years. There were plans for the '07 model year and at least 1 prototype has been built. Unfortunately dealer orders for the Alpha were disappointing and this is probably what tipped the scales as far as spending any more money. If there are any built in the future they will most likely only be for overseas markets or the U.S. Government (border patrol?). If there is a big enough single order, AM General may leave the door open to such units if they were not required to meet EPA standards. Other than that it looks like it is a done deal. I felt sick when I heard.

Excerpt from the AM General release:
Obviously, we cannot make a business case to put tens of millions of dollars into an all new body to sell a few hundred trucks a year. Therefore, General Motors and AM General, together, have made the decision that now is the time to discontinue production of the H1 Alpha series. So effective with the conclusion of the 2006 production run, which will be sometime this June, production will cease on that wonderful vehicle.

So, is this just reading into the semantics? Personally, since the Duramax is only in the ALPHA models, it's probably been a horrible waste of money for AM General since the rest of fleet production is the 6.5 turbo. I think the EPA thing might be an issue, but I doubt it's that expensive to correct (every other automaker is doing it). And the special interiors have probably been expensive without any real return. And really, do you need an Allision tranny, and some of these other improvements? I think the lockers, and HD steering gear are probably the two most important upgrades since 2003, and I'm guessing maybe the new intercooler and fan assembly and half-shafts. So the in theory less expensive items probably were added out of true off-road improvement, and the engine, tranny, and interior for mass-market sales. Which, ironically, backfired.

What do you think?