2006 Hummer H3 Luxury/adventure Sport Utility 4-door 3.5l on 2040-cars

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Automakers tussle over owners of 'orphan' makes

When General Motors put down several of its brands in recent years, it also let loose thousands of brand-loyal customers who will eventually need another car.
R.L. Polk Associates estimates there are more than 18 million cars from 16 discontinued makes on the road today. Those "orphan owners" have sales-hungry competitors seeing dollar signs. GM is offering Saturn owners $1,000 cash toward a Chevy Cruze, Cadillac CTS or a GMC Acadia. Ford is giving its Mercury lease customers a chance to get out of their contracts with no early-termination penalty and offering to waive six remaining payments if they drive off in a Ford or Lincoln.
Edmunds.com research shows the efforts are paying off somewhat for GM, with 39 percent of Pontiac owners, 37 percent of Hummer owners and 31 percent of Saturn owners taking delivery of another GM-branded vehicle. But that leaves as much as 69 percent of owners going elsewhere. Ford, Honda and Toyota seem to be attracting many former GM owners.

Are orphan cars better deals?

Most folks don't know a Saturn Aura from an Oldsmobile Aurora. Those of you who are immersed in the labyrinth of automobilia know that both cars were testaments to the mediocrity that was pre-bankruptcy General Motors, and that both brands are now long gone. But everybody else? Not so much. By the same token, there are some excellent cars and trucks that don't raise an eyebrow simply because they were sold under brands that are no longer being marketed. Orphan brands no longer get any marketing love, and because of that they can be alarmingly cheap. Case in point, take a look at how a 2010 Saturn Outlook compares with its siblings, the GMC Acadia and Buick Enclave. According to the Manheim Market Report, the Saturn will sell at a wholesale auto auction for around $3,500 less than the comparably equipped Buick or GMC. Part of the reason for this price gap is that most large independent dealerships, such as Carmax, make it a point to avoid buying cars with orphaned badges. Right now if you go to Carmax's site, you'll find that there are more models from Toyota's Scion sub-brand than Mercury, Saab, Pontiac, Hummer, and Saturn combined. This despite the fact that these brands collectively sold in the millions over the last ten years while Scion has rarely been able to realize a six-figure annual sales figure for most of its history. That is the brutal truth of today's car market. When the chips are down, used-car shoppers are nearly as conservative as their new-car-buying counterparts. Unfamiliarity breeds contempt. Contempt leads to fear. Fear leads to anger, and pretty soon you wind up with an older, beat-up Mazda MX-5 in your driveway instead of looking up a newer Pontiac Solstice or Saturn Sky. There are tons of other reasons why orphan cars have trouble selling in today's market. Worries about the cost of repair and the availability of parts hang over the industry's lost toys like a cloud of dust over Pigpen. Yet any common diagnostic repair database, such as Alldata, will have a complete framework for your car's repair and maintenance, and everyone from junkyards to auto parts stores to eBay and Amazon stock tens of thousands of parts. This makes some orphan cars mindblowingly awesome deals if you're willing to shop in the bargain bins of the used-car market. Consider a Suzuki Kizashi with a manual transmission. No, really.

2024 GMC Hummer EV SUV Edition 1 back on the market after charity auction

The charity auctions at this year's Barrett-Jackson event in Arizona pulled in the usual millions for good causes. Nevertheless, there were no shocking result among the sales like the 2023 Chevrolet Corvette VIN 001 that hammered for $3.7 million in 2022 or the 2022 GMC Hummer EV pickup VIN 001 that hammered for $2.5 million in 2021. In fact, the best result for hammer prices this year was a GMC Hummer EV SUV VIN001 that brought in $500,000, quite a ways down on its bedded sibling. Seems the purchaser decided a little bit of battery-electric arbitrage might be the play, because the SUV is going back up for sale. As caught by CarBuzz, a new member to the Hummer Chat forum started a thread, "Barrett Jackson VIN #1 SUV available." According to the poster who calls himself Bill, "Tread Lightly, the charity organization that the funds went to, aligns well with our company and we were excited to participate with them, however, the Hummer should go to a true enthusiast or collector." The post says Barrett-Jackson "is interested in" putting the Hummer in front of audiences at the Palm Beach auction event April 13-15 or at the Vegas event June 22-24. The vehicle's apparently been built and will be titled in Arizona. It's a loaded Edition 1 in Moonshot Green Matte with a Lunar Shadow interior and three motors making roughly 830 horsepower. There are transparent sky panels that open to create the open-air "Infinity Roof," 14-speaker Bose audio, Super Cruise, Crab Walk and Watts to Freedom mode. Naturally, the seller is willing to part with this bit of history before April and at first said he is ready to "consider a reasonable offer for the vehicle." We're not sure if that means more than $500,000. If so, and without the charity component — the reason these vehicles bring in so much money so often — we suspect such an asking price would be a tough draw. A look at Cars & Bids results for GMC Hummer EV pickups in Edition 1 trim shows prices that regularly surpassed $200,000 last summer are now down to around $160,000. However, two posts later, Bill says his company is "open to all offers."  The Hummer EV SUV Edition 1 retail version will reach begin reaching owners by the end of Q1 this year, which isn't far away. It cost $105,595 when it could be reserved.