It would be hard to imagine a more potent icon of consumerism without a conscience than the hulking Hummer, symbol of the greed-over-green ways that have helped to lay America low.

Now a Chinese heavy machinery company has bought that failed piece of the American dream, with grand plans to bring it back to life, not just in the US
but in China.

Auto market analysts in China were flabbergasted that GM had sold Hummer to China's Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery, a privately owned manufacturer of heavy equipment, highway and bridge structural components, construction machinery and energy facilities. The company has never made a substantial passenger vehicle or managed a plant overseas. Sichuan Tengzhong says it will make the Hummer greener, and hopes to sell lots in the US and China – where the rich care little about the petrol price.