Last HUMMER Dealer in Vegas Shuttered

Towbin HUMMER is history--and in its death throes are a larger lesson on GM's HUMMER experiment.

Towbin was one of HUMMER's largest retailers in the nation. It's the eighth HUMMER dealer closure in 2008, and eliminates any retail outlets for the brand in notoriously spendy and splashy Las Vegas--which is also the capital of the mortgage crisis, if you elbow aside south Florida and Scottsdale.

Curiously, owner Dan Towbin claimed he feels "very aligned with the brand" in a WSJ article, even as the doors were being shut for good. He may be; the public no longer is, with HUMMER sales plummeting month on month. GM recently announced in an Indian press conference that the sale of HUMMER is on "an urgent basis" as reported by Automotive News.

Towbin's moving on--to sell the smart fortwo, a car significantly more attuned to $4 gas than the entire HUMMER lineup. It's a cautionary tale for our times, one that Jalopnik gets right: "When you stake your claim on being the biggest and the baddest, and Vegas rejects you, you've probably hit the end of the line."


2005 HUMMER H2 SUTEnlarge PhotoTowbin HUMMER is history--and in its death throes are a larger lesson on GM's HUMMER experiment. Towbin was one of HUMMER's largest retailers in the nation. It's the eighth HUMMER dealer closure in 2008, and eliminates any retail outlets for the brand in notoriously spendy and splashy Las Vegas--which is also the capital of the mortgage crisis, if you elbow aside south Florida and Scottsdale. Curiously, owner Dan Towbin claimed he feels "very aligned with the brand" in a WSJ article, even as the doors were being shut for good. He may be; the public no longer is, with HUMMER sales plummeting month on month. GM recently announced in an Indian press conference that the sale of HUMMER is on "an urgent basis" as reported by Automotive News. Towbin's moving on--to sell the smart fortwo, a car significantly more attuned to $4 gas than the entire HUMMER lineup. It's a cautionary tale for our times, one that Jalopnik gets right: "When you stake your claim on being the biggest and the baddest, and Vegas rejects you, you've probably hit the end of the line."