A Chinese company is to buy Hummer, the General Motors brand known for its military- inspired offroad vehicles and seen as a symbol of gas- guzzling, road-hogging American excess.

Hummer's sale to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company will close this year, marking one of the biggest overseas acquisitions in carmaking by a Chinese group.

GM confirmed the sale yesterday but did not name the buyer. A person close to the company identified it as Sichuan Tengzhong, which makes road and construction engineering equipment and has a specialist commercial vehicles business.

The announcement came a day after the Detroit carmaker's landmark US bankruptcy filing and is part of its plan to shed lossmaking units and trim its operations to four core brands. GM said the sale would close by the end of the third quarter.

In June 2008, Rick Wagoner, then GM's chief executive, said Hummer – whose new model H3 debuts this month – was being reviewed for a possible disposal. The brand's sale, run by Citigroup, has run for nearly a year, delayed in large part by the uncertainty hanging over GM's future.

The deal will see ownership of the Hummer brand and control of its management move to the Chinese company, which will then contract vehicle manufacturing and business services from GM, leaving the brand's US operations largely intact. GM said the sale would secure more than 3,000 jobs.

GM said Hummer's buyer would “aggressively fund future Hummer product programmes”. GM is also seeking buyers for its Saturn and Saab brands.

As Detroit's troubled carmakers shed assets, Chinese carmakers have explored buying foreign car brands, although the Chinese government is curbing their push for rapid expansion because of worries about their readiness to compete.

Beijing Automotive Industry Corp, one of China's biggest commercial vehicle producers, was one of four groups to have expressed interest in a stake in Opel, GM's European arm. Geely, another Chinese carmaker, is interested in Ford Motor's Volvo brand. In March, Geely bought Australia's Drivetrain Systems International.