But of course.
In the wake of Tengzhong’s collapsed bid for Hummer, the price of the hulking ex-military car has skyrocketed.
According to the Shanghai Morning Post, dealers in Shanghai have already raised the price of the Hummer H3X by 20,000 yuan ($3,000) and are planning to up the price of the H2 by 100,000 yuan.
That makes the price of the H3X, once all the taxes are taken into account, 750,000 yuan, or $110,000, almost three times the $38,000 price tag of the car in the US.
As for the H2, there’s only one car available in Shanghai, so the dealers won’t even put a price on it. Since there will not be many more of them, it seems that Hummer may become the ultimate status symbol for a wealthy Chinese.
"Our Hummer is directly imported from abroad through formal channels, and the sales and after-sales service will not be affected by Tangzhong’s failed acquisition," said one dealer to the newspaper.
Apparently the dealers had been fretting that the value of their stock would have plummeted if Tengzhong had been successful, since the car would instantly have lost its gloss.
All of which would seem to point to the fact that there is still plenty of value in the Hummer brand, especially if you can sell the cars for such a huge margin out East.