Sometimes even pure four-wheeled testosterone needs some time off. AM General and General Motors have announced that production of the Hummer H2 is to be temporarily suspended.

AM General, who builds the H2 at its Indiana plant under contract for GM, will be laying-off more than 200 workers as part of the production stoppage. At this stage however, while it continues to hold large US defence contracts, AM General is planning to minimise lay-offs by relocating workers into its military assembly lines.

When, or even if, AM General plans to resume production of civilian vehicles, remains unclear.

AM General began building the venerable High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or ‘HumVee’, for military use in the mid-1980s. In 1992, a civilian version became available and in 1998 General Motors bought the rights to the Hummer brand. The H2 was introduced in 2003 and shares its platform with the Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon.

A spokesman for the company, Craig Mac Nab said, “Nobody knows what’s going to happen with the H2 plant.”

However he was a little more positive about the futures of affected workers, “What we are doing at considerable difficulty and expense to the company is moving all eligible employees from the H2 workforce into other parts of the company — finding them jobs.”

[World Car Fans]