from CNNMoney.com:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — General Motors Corp. said Tuesday that it has signed a deal to sell its Hummer truck unit, just one day after filing for bankruptcy.
But GM (GMGMQ) would not identify the buyer nor name a price, saying only that the deal would close by the end of September.
GM had revealed in April that it was courting three serious offers for the Hummer brand. The automaker would not confirm Reuters’ report that offers ranged from $100 million to $200 million.
Read more HERE
Will a Hummer be considered a classic in 50 years? Jay Leno has the answer in this article from PopularMechanics.com:
Stocks and bonds? I don’t know much about them. In fact, I don’t know anything about stocks and bonds. I’ve lost money in the stock market; come to think of it, I’ve lost money in real estate too. But I’ve never lost money on cars.
The reason is simple: I’ve always bought cars I really want to own. If you buy a car that you like, and it loses its value, at least you still like it. Besides, even if the car’s value does go down a little, it will come back up at some point down the road.
About 10 years ago, I had the chance to buy a McLaren F1. A new one was almost a million dollars. This was a secondhand car with less than 2500 miles, and it was $800,000. I thought, it’s crazy to spend that much money on a car. So I talked it over with my wife. And she said, “You’ve worked hard. If you want to get it, get it.” And I thought, ohhh … kaaay! So I bought it.
Last year, a McLaren F1 sold at auction for $4.1 million! I now realize this is the greatest investment I’ve ever made. In less than 10 years, I more than quintupled my money. Best of all, I have a car I really enjoy. But there are plenty of modern cars you can buy at real-world prices that are fun to own.
People ask me if they should buy a new car and tuck it away as an investment. I think it’s ridiculous to buy something and just squirrel it away. The fuel will eventually go bad, all the moving parts will still have to be lubricated, and you still have to insure it. Cars should be driven. If you let a car sit, you’ll eventually have to flush the fuel system, replace the electronics and more. Buying any car and putting it into storage for years gets you nothing. It’s a bad idea. You won’t be buying something you like—you’re just trying to make money.
There are plenty of guys who bought the original Dodge Viper as an investment. When that car first came out in 1992, it produced 400 hp, an incredible level of power for that time. People thought, “That’s it. They’ll never make a car more powerful. I’ll buy one and stick it in my garage.” Now, every day people call me: “Hey, I’ve got a ’92 Viper with 800 miles.” Sorry, I’m not interested. “Three hundred miles?” Nope. You didn’t buy it to own it.
But there are some interesting modern cars that are potential collectibles you can drive and enjoy—cars considered common transportation today. I think the first-generation Toyota Prius is a future collectible. Although it was technically innovative at the time, now it just seems cute. It’s kind of slow, and it doesn’t have tremendous range. But it was the first of its kind—the first mass-produced hybrid—and there’s an honest simplicity to that. So if you have an original Prius, in 10 or 15 years, you’ll meet people who say, “I bought one of those!” And they’ll want to relive the feeling of watching the little dashboard display jump from charging to consuming. That neat feature will bring back a flood of those memories.
It’s like when I talk to people who once owned early and mid-1960s push-button Chryslers. They say, “I learned to drive in one of those! You press the D button to go, and you press R for reverse.” They remember that feeling of freedom and American progress—simply pressing buttons to drive down the road. So cars with unusual features, technology that cars today no longer have, can be collectible.
Years ago, I was told Mustangs would never be collectibles because Ford built millions of them. We’re a disposable society. But eventually, we want what we used to have—the cars we ran into the ground. We’ve used most of those old Mustangs up, and now they’re gone. So the survivors are highly prized.
Once, when I was visiting England, one of my relatives said, “You like motorcycles—you should talk to our vicar. He has one.” So I met the vicar, who owned a ’66 Honda 160. I asked how long he’d had it. He looked at me kind of quizzically and said, “I bought it new.” He’d had that bike his whole life, and he’d maintained it. To him it wasn’t a collectible. Many of us would say, “Oh, I had one of those, and my father threw it away,” or “We gave it to a neighbor,” or “We rode it to death,” or “We finally broke it and got something else.” In other countries, because motor vehicles aren’t seen so much as appliances, they’re treated with great respect. This vicar had been riding that Honda 160 for 40 years! It was his only transportation. And it was a survivor.
That’s the difference. We want what we used to have. We get rid of it, and then we pay 10 to 15 times over what it was worth originally just to get it back—often to recapture whatever lost youth we thought we had.
That’s why I think the Mazda Miata will be the ultimate affordable collectible by, say, 2025. The first-generation Miata was extremely simple, and that’s part of its charm. Years ago, when we were restoring Mustangs, they seemed so complicated compared to a Ford Model A.
A brake-light switch? Why do we have to have thaaaat? In a Model A, you just strung together a couple of yards of wire and boom! You were done. So the early Miata, with no traction control, no stability control—no nothing—will certainly be a collectible.
I think the first-generation Taurus, the forward-looking aerodynamic sedan, will be collectible too. That was seen as a real styling triumph in the mid-1980s. Almost anything built before today’s government safety regulations could be collectible. In the future, cars lacking these systems will appear so odd to people.
Read the rest of the article HERE
General Motors announced yesterday that the company will be phasing out their Pontiac brand, and ceasing construction completely of the Saturn brand. They also say Hummer is doomed if they can’t find a buyer for the label by 31 March. Read more…
SAN CLEMENTE, Calif., Aug. 28 /PRNewswire/ — “Go Ahead Punk … Make My Day!” … Imagine this familiar voice sounding out from under the hood of your ride; or you pull up in front of your girlfriend’s house and announce your arrival with “I Got You Babe,” or you are out on your boat and you press a button on your FX-550 - and all around you can hear the theme song from “Jaws.” With Horntones the possibilities are endless.
The Horntones FX-550 System is the first mobile audio system that supplements the sound of a vehicle’s horn function by sounding any MP3 audio clip. The FX-550 introduces a new dimension to the automotive customization aftermarket.
According to Horntones President Mike Kosco, “The brain-seed for this invention occurred at a coffee shop back in the summer of 2005, when a group of teenagers were heckling me about the Incredible Hulk that is airbrushed on the hood of my H1 Hummer. I thought to myself … I wish I had a button I could push that would make my car growl!” Kosco continues, “Well, the Hummer now growls and makes hundreds of other sounds too, from simple voice clips to entire theme songs.”
The FX-550 Horntones System is a three-piece system which includes the FX-550 Player, the AP-150 audio amplifier and the rugged SR-100 speaker.
The Horntones FX-550 Player can store 256 mega-bytes of tones and is simple to use. It has 9 preset buttons and 2 negative-trigger inputs for interfacing with other vehicle functions. Tones are organized into “Themes.” Each Theme allows new tones to be assigned to the 9 buttons. Themes can be as varied as Horns, Tailgate Party, Concert, Car Show, Soccer, Carpool, Movies, Politics, Advertisements or whatever you like.
Adding new tones to the system is simple using a standard USB thumb (flash) drive. The company’s website, http://www.horntones.com, includes a “Virtual Player” that allows users to completely configure their FX-550 online and then simply save the resulting file to a USB thumb drive. The thumb drive is then brought to the FX-550, plugged-in and new tones and configuration settings are automatically loaded. The FX-550 does not require removal from the vehicle for tone updates.
Custom, user-authored tones can also be added to the FX-550 using the horntones.com “Virtual Player.” Custom horntones can be created using any MP3 editing software.
Kosco added, “We first previewed Horntones at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this year and were overwhelmed by the positive response.” The Horntones FX-550 System will debut in October at the 2007 Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show in Las Vegas.
Pricing and Availability
The Horntones FX-550 System is now shipping and can be purchased at http://www.horntones.com. The cost of the FX-550 System is $250USD, plus shipping.
PLAY
