When Wisconsin car dealer John Bergstrom had a grand opening for the first prototype Hummer dealership in July 2002, then-General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner cut the ribbon.

The new dealership on the far northwest side of Milwaukee featured a military-styled building and a test course where prospective buyers could drive the beastly new machines through water, rocks and mud.

GM's "Keep America Rolling" campaign and 0% financing plans, launched after 9/11, suggested that buying a giant, gas-guzzling truck with a $50,000-plus MSRP was one's patriotic duty.

It was a time when home equity lines could make dreams come true. Even bizarre dreams about fording rivers, driving over boulders and climbing concrete walls on giant, knobby tires. You know, the kind of dreams that upwardly mobile people have when they are really only driving to the grocery store.

"Bold, rugged, first-class fun," Wagoner declared at the ribbon-cutting. "When we purchased the Hummer name back in 1999, we knew we had purchased an icon."

Action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger helped forge Hummer's iconic status as one of the first private citizens to own what was then called a Humvee.

Now, he's California's governor and drowning in budget shortfalls and debt.

The new hero is Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery, which is buying Hummer from bankrupt GM for perhaps $500 million or less.

"The Hummer brand is synonymous with adventure, freedom and exhilaration," Yang Yi, CEO of Tengzhong, said in a press release, "and we plan to continue that heritage."

So now we can buy freedom from a company based in a communist country.

Like most people, Bergstrom had never heard of privately held Tengzhong, maker of industrial monstrosities such as tow trucks, oil tankers, cistern cars and concrete pumping vehicles that can make a Hummer look like a Smart Car.

"We've done a lot of work in the last couple days trying to learn about them," Bergstrom told me, "but we really don't know."

He's just glad someone will keep making Hummers.

Bergstrom is chairman of Bergstrom Corp. which owns several dealerships selling all kinds of cars: Cadillac, Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Hummer, Lexus, Mercedes, Nissan, Saab, Saturn, Toyota, and Volvo. He recently lost his Buick franchise, closed four Saturn dealerships because of declining sales, and has had to layoff hundreds of employees.

"We continue to have a decent Hummer business," he said. "It's not booming by any stretch, but nothing is booming."

For all its hype, the Hummer was always a niche brand. Sales peaked at 71,524 in 2006. By comparison, Honda has sold more than 50,000 Civics in a month. And when gasoline prices hit $4 last summer, Hummer swiftly became an icon of all that was going horribly wrong at GM.

Mark Wells, president of the off-roading Hummer X Club, said Hummer's identity as a Made-in-America vehicle has long been a source of pride for Hummer owners. But at least Tengzhong will continue to make them in the U.S. and try to improve their fuel efficiency.

"I would have preferred it always be an American company," he said. "I would really preferred the buyer was Am General, which originally owned the brand."

Wells, an operation manager at a computer board manufacturing plant, said he will soon drive his 2009 Hummer H3 Alpha with a roaring V8 from his home in Florida to Utah, where he will crawl over rocks with other members of his club.

"I've loved them since I first rode in one back in the mid-1990s," he said. "But I've now fallen more in love. .. It will be a bit of a bullet to bite when it's time to get another one, but at least I can still get one."

He's hoping Hummer's new Chinese owner will come up with more innovative designs and give the vehicle a better reputation than the one from stodgy GM.

"The reputation of the Hummer is full of misinformation, and it's hurt the brand," Wells said. "You constantly hear that they only get 10 miles per gallon. I get 15. .. I got that in my (Mercury) Mountaineer, but people weren't bashing that.

So bye, bye big-bloated GM. Hello, Tengzhong. Or should I say, "Ni hao?"

Thanks to GM, we can all brush up on our Chinese. When I asked Bergstrom if he was going to try to learn the language, he just laughed: "I want you to learn Chinese and tell me what they said."

--Al's Emporium, written by Dow Jones Newswires columnist Al Lewis, offers commentary and analysis on a wide range of business subjects through an unconventional perspective. The column is published each Tuesday and Thursday at 9 a.m. ET. He can be reached at 201-938-5266 or by email at al.lewis@dowjones.com or on his blog at tellittoal.com.
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