"A Deal Sours, and the Hummer Bites the Dust"

"GM's efforts to sell its Hummer brand to a little-known Chinese company have fallen apart, the U.S. automaker announced Wednesday. As a result, GM will begin to dismantle a brand of gas-guzzling SUVs that were synonymous with pre-financial crisis wealth and excess.

Specific reasons for the failure of the deal, first announced last June, were not released. But Chinese regulators had frowned on the purchase for much the same reason that U.S. consumers shunned Hummer; the vehicles size and poor fuel economy were incompatible in an era of high fuel prices, general economic weakness and greater concern about the harmful effects of vehicle emissions on the environment."

Austin Ramzy reports for TIME February 25, 2010.