H2 Hummer

[Clay Fink]

Stupid fucking people.

Some dickhead has one at work and the bumpers are at the exact height of most car's windshields.

These things should be outlawed.

Also: check how they will not sell them to just anyone.

washingtonpost.com
H2: Newest Gotta-Have-Mobile of the Burbs


By Bob Levey

Friday, May 23, 2003; Page C09


It is truly strange to drive a motor vehicle that lists for $66,810. My first house cost about that much -- and it didn't have three kinds of four- wheel drive, a satellite-linked navigation device and a sound system that could cause the dead to rock and roll.

I have to admit it: The jet-black H2 that I was test-driving on dumpy old Clopper Road was exhilarating and different.

People stopped and stared. If they could have left noseprints on the window, they would have.

Memo to my two flea-bitten, decade-old Toyotas: That has never happened when I've driven either of you.

In mid-2003, the year-old H2 from Hummer is clearly the coolest of the cool. In part because of the war in Iraq, when Humvees were all over the TV screen for weeks, in part because of the American lust for the next hottest thing on four wheels, the H2 is selling briskly, especially in the Washington suburbs.

I recently spent half a morning with the sales troops at Criswell Hummer in Gaithersburg. They said they're selling between 20 and 25 H2s a month. Across the United States, sales of H2s leapt by more than 8,000 percent between March 2002 and March 2003.

Criswell also offers the H1, the more military Hummer introduced 11 years ago. That model doesn't sell anywhere near as well as its smaller cousin, probably because of price. An H1 will set you back a minimum of $100,000. That sixth digit is still a gasp-producer.

But so is the H2, for reasons good and bad.

Good: It has all the comforts of any large SUV, even though it has the bloodlines of a tank. It handles as well as any SUV, or better. Its leather seats are squishy and delicious. Its handling is surprisingly supple. Its off-road capability is amazing.

Bad: It gets a horrendous nine miles to the gallon in city conditions. It weighs 6,400 pounds, so it is clearly being bought by people who plan to drive it aggressively, knowing they will "win" if they're ever in a collision. It won't fit into about one-third of the underground parking lots in downtown Washington. It recently scored at the bottom of an independent test for new-vehicle reliability.

But the real jaw-dropper is how the H2 is being used.

As if it were one of my tacky Toyotas.

"It's definitely a suburban vehicle," despite its military history and origins, said Neil Kopit, Criswell's director of marketing. "It's not really great down in Washington if you're going to be parking it."

So Criswell's H2 customers are? "The same people who bought Suburbans and Expeditions," Neil said. "Most are using it to go to the Giant and haul kids." One customer bought an H2 so she could put her dogs in the back of it conveniently. Price and gas mileage meant nothing to her.

Yes, her.

According to Neil, about 40 percent of Criswell's H2 sales have been to women. He hears from them: "I would have bought an H1 if only they were a little more suburbanized, and now you've done it."

H2 is in the midst of an interesting marketing problem.

The war in Iraq has fostered great interest in all Hummers, because of "the CNN Effect" -- a month's worth of wall-to-wall TV coverage of a hefty, can-do vehicle. But no dealership wants to look as if it's profiting from deadly armed conflict.

Neil Kopit said he has seen "no war boost" at Criswell. At the same time, he says that having all those Hummers on all those TV screens "clearly helps."

On the other hand, H2's muscular reputation has led to some awkward moments.

According to Neil, Criswell has turned aside five offers for new H2s because it didn't like the vibes that the prospective buyer was giving off.

One such walk-in customer, a man of Middle Eastern descent, tried to buy a new H2 with cash on the day that the U.S. first bombed Iraq. Criswell refused to sell it to him.

"There's an obvious risk" that a buyer might want to use the H2 in an act of terrorism, said Jim Matthews, Criswell's Hummer sales manager. "There isn't a Jersey barrier anywhere that could stand up to one of these."

But for most H2 customers in the D.C. burbs, the H2 is all about the Joneses
-- not keeping up with them, but making them jealous.

"Our customers want to say that they own the neatest thing on the road," said Neil Kopit. "It's the new different thing."




© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[moneyp]

Yes yes, mileage, parking, safety risk, etc...



...but they are really damned cool.

I admit, if I were a millionaire, I'd have one of these bad boys and give it a serious workout.

[shrugs]

kind of obnoxious! I was cut off by one recently and I was doing 70. an H2 going 70+ is a scary thought.

Has the Motor Home crowd been atacked yet? Those Winnebago's have to guzzle some serious gas. Ditto for pleasure boats. I never seem to hear the people who get their panties in a bunch over this stuff cry out against those two groups.

[al j]

Moné, perhaps you and I can go dutch on one and timeshare.

[moneyp]

Originally posted by Joe Christmas
Moné, perhaps you and I can go dutch on one and timeshare.

Okay, but I get it for the winter!

[al j]

Perfect. Because part of me WANTS to sideswipe those sandwich-board wearing mattress peddlers by the mall in a disgustingly huge 4x and blame it on winter road conditions. This deal precludes such a thing. Good thinking, bro.

[Tanager]

Originally posted by shrugs
Has the Motor Home crowd been atacked yet? Those Winnebago's have to guzzle some serious gas. Ditto for pleasure boats. I never seem to hear the people who get their panties in a bunch over this stuff cry out against those two groups.

I get my panties in a bunch over "this stuff" all the time, and I will happily rail over powerboats, as much b/c people drive them incredibly irresponsibly lots of the time (beer cooler, don't obey harbor speed limits, blast through marine and estuarine preserves) in much the same fashion as the ORV crowd. Yes, both have their places, as do 4x4s, but there are IMHO way too many of them out on the water.

Winnebago's are sort of a different thing - noone uses them as a daily commuter vehicle. Yes, they're huge, ugly (some might differ, but this is my take), ungainly, and God forbid you get stuck behind one straddling the center line on a two-lane stretch going 15 mph under the limit, but I don't see them as the same level of nuisance as bigass SUVs, if only b/c they're not *nearly* as common. Of course, if I lived next to the entrance to a big national park, I'm fairly sure I'd feel otherwise.

My biggest complaint with motor homes and RVs is that they have led people to demand more and more paved roads into the heart of some truly beautiful wild places - obviously, if there's a wonderful natural area, it can only be appreciated by parking your bigass f*cking vehicle right next to it because you can't be bothered to walk or take a shuttle like everyone else. Great, you're touring the country in your RV, I'm sorry if you can't get right next to the mountaintop, why not get out and walk, and if this sounds hostile to those who have limited mobility, I'm sorry, but I don't believe that we need to make access to every part of nature "easy." Some places are beautiful and wonderful *because* they're remote.

Shrugs, that work for you? Or do you wanna hear more indignance?

[moneyp]

Originally posted by Tanager
My biggest complaint with motor homes and RVs is that they have led people to demand more and more paved roads into the heart of some truly beautiful wild places

Who needs a road? That's why I want the Hummer!

[shrugs]

Originally posted by Tanager
Shrugs, that work for you? Or do you wanna hear more indignance?

More!

[Tanager]

Originally posted by shrugs
More!

Sure, just as soon as I finish smacking Mone around with a week-old tuna.

[al j]

Originally posted by shrugs
More!

http://www.staynavy.navy.mil

[Salvador Dali Lama]

If I had the cash, you can believe I'd have a land rover and I'd be driving the bastard off some beaten path somewhere.

but I agree, h2's are a monstrosity.

i also agree that people should be able to dive whatever they hell they want.

why dont people bitch about trucks that use disel fuel and pollute like 5 times as much as an SUV?

or even pickup trucks? a ford f250 is the exact same vehicle under the hood as an explorer. but i dont see people bitching about them.

i dont feel comfortable with the great bulk of the SUV bashing that goes on. most of it sounds like envy.

i also dont feel comfortable with people driving suburbans and shit like that just for the hell of it. if you need that kind of vehicle thats one thing, but otherwise its just damn wasteful...

just my 2 kopeks.

[Tanager]

Originally posted by Salvador Dali Lama
why dont people bitch about trucks that use disel fuel and pollute like 5 times as much as an SUV?

or even pickup trucks? a ford f250 is the exact same vehicle under the hood as an explorer. but i dont see people bitching about them.

i dont feel comfortable with the great bulk of the SUV bashing that goes on. most of it sounds like envy.

i also dont feel comfortable with people driving suburbans and shit like that just for the hell of it. if you need that kind of vehicle thats one thing, but otherwise its just damn wasteful...

With all due respect Sal, there is a LOT of bitching about trucks, both bigass diesels (hell, the Interstate highway system was basically a project of the teamsters to help them outcompete freight trains, the civil defense motive was just the selling point) and pickups. And no, most of it is not envy, certainly not among environmental groups. There is a lot of evidence to show that the big automakers are actively pushing more "light trucks" (which includes both pickups and SUVs) onto the highways. They're subject to far less stringent safety and fuel economy restrictions than passenger cars, b/c under the law, they're not classified as such. Suburban? Not a car. Tahoe? Not a car. F150? Not a car. It doesn't matter what you use it for, they're all allowed to slide in a variety of areas. Because of this, they're much easier to manufacture (and therefore cheaper) - the profit margins are easily double for light trucks what they are for passenger cars.

So the folks who are culpable for this aren't just the consumers who buy them, they're the big makers and the regulatory bodies as well, but most markets are, IMHO, primarily demand-driven. If people weren't buying them, the manufacturers wouldn't make 'em.

I, for one, am entirely comfortable with most of the SUV-bashing. Note to suburbanites: Buy a freaking station wagon. If you need AWD/4WD, get a Subaru.

I have been offroad in some pretty remote places, and if I need 4WD, I can freakin' well rent one.

And yes, I live near some very rural areas where people actually need light trucks and use them for what they were originally designed for - I have no issue with that, so please don't pipe up with the "what about the poor farmers and builders who need trucks."

[moneyp]

Originally posted by Tanager
Sure, just as soon as I finish smacking Mone around with a week-old tuna.

That's it, I'm riding over your spice garden, weenie.

[BFrank]

Slogging through deep sand at Hummer camp.

Every few years a vehicle comes along that draws a crowd, but few have been loved or hated with such vigor as the Hummer. To environmentalists, it is a gas-gulping, globe-warming menace. To consumer safety advocates, a highway battering ram. But to many of its customers, the Hummer is the first American car to stir emotion in decades.

And for the truly smitten, there is Hummer camp, a sort of 21st-century dude ranch of mud-besotted excess more formally known as the Hummer Driving Academy. For three nights and two days last week, half a dozen students convened for a camp session, rambling over obstacle courses and roaring through 300 acres of muddy terrain thickly wooded with beech, white oak, cherry and shag-bark hickory trees in South Bend. The fee for this privilege is $3,575, plus $875 to bring along a spouse.
NY Times

[Salvador Dali Lama]

I never knew that about the classification thing Tanager - I figured there had to be some motivation behind pushing the SUVs by the manufacturers beyond mere popularity, I figured it was because they cost more than the average car. Thats quite interesting.

I'm in favor of completely doing away with the combustion engine altogether myself. I say to hell with trying to slow down the pollution - why not stop it altogether. Granted one is more realistic than the other, but both seem like pipe dreams at this point.

what do the environmentalist groups say about countries like india, where there are an assload of cars but absolutely no emissions standards? Bombay has some filthy air, or so I'm told...

[Rob C]

I guess Hummers look sort of cool on those dirt roads, but they look ridiculous parallel-parked on a city street, which is the only place I've seen them. I can't see one without thinking, "Sorry about your penis, dude."

[Tanager]

Originally posted by Salvador Dali Lama
what do the environmentalist groups say about countries like india, where there are an assload of cars but absolutely no emissions standards? Bombay has some filthy air, or so I'm told...

Man, I've spent a lot of time in India, and I'm due to go there again this Xmas. The air in Delhi is unfathomably bad. You're right that they need to clean things up, and they have started to, albeit very slowly. One of the main pollution sources is the raft of 3-wheeler scooter taxis, what are in India called "rickshaws." These have traditionally used 2-cycle engines with almost no pollution controls, etc., but I believe they are now required to upgrade. But remember that this is a country with broad societal and financial ills, never mind the stories about all the dotcoms and the middleclass, those exist, but the majority of folks there have much, much, MUCH less $$$ than in the West - so getting all these rickshaws (just using this as an example) upgraded to cleaner engines is difficult, to say the least, and just grounding them is well-nigh unenforceable - I think they may have even tried doing just that, with not a lot of success.

Having said that, there are some small signs of progress - they have begun upgrading the city buses in Delhi to natural gas, I believe, and this is a big step, b/c previously I believe they were diesels with (again) pretty much zero emissions control. There are clean diesels (relatively) - Europeans drive many more diesels than we do in the US - but they ain't got 'em in India, for the most part, so this (moving to natgas in the buses) will hopefully make a difference.

There are other problems, however - industrial effluent and emissions controls are pretty nonexistent except on paper, and the rapidly expanding population poses real threats to what passes for "undisturbed" natural areas in India (of which there aren't many outside the Himalaya), and the bureaucracy there is far messier than most folks can even begin to imagine.

So this is a long way of saying, yes folks want places like India and China to clean up, but it's harder to be indignant towards them than towards folks in the US, who (a) can afford to be more responsible (it's tough to preach to someone about the environment when the average annual wage is less in many places than the average housing and food costs - think that over for a minute) and (b) know better (same as for (a)).

[Dr Dave]

The H-2 is just the latest in a long series of vehicles for the genitally impaired.

[shrugs]

Tanager, I was just trying to ruffle some feathers. But you have to admit that there are a lof people out there who think they are concerned about the environment that only know about one area:SUV's. It's almost like an obsession for some.

[Salvador Dali Lama]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing Tanager. Its good to hear about the natural gas busses though. And you make an excellent point about who to bitch at. I think theres something fundamentally wrong with the american psyche at this point. Nobody cares about their own future, or lack thereof.

So, with your environmentalist background, do you think theres much of any chance of having success in turning some of this stuff around? From my complete and total layman's perspective, there doesnt look like theres any hope at all. Especially when the government is the biggest polluter of them all. What do you think? Any hope?

[Clay Fink]

Originally posted by shrugs
Tanager, I was just trying to ruffle some feathers. But you have to admit that there are a lof people out there who think they are concerned about the environment that only know about one area:SUV's. It's almost like an obsession for some.

Maybe so. I think with good reason though, since everytime you turn around you see one of these monstrosities with only the driver on board. Why the fuck you need a 6000lb vehicle to move around a 180lb human being, I don't know.

BTW, the reason that our air isn't as dirty as it is in Indian cities is due to the efforts of the much maligned "environmental movement" and the dispised "goverment". We'll surely catch up with India and China as we slowly dismantle the public sector. Actually, we'll probably meet them on the way down as they manage to clean things up.

People in this country should not be able to drive ANYTHING they want. I find it humorous when us spoiled and overfed Americans cry oppression when the goverment says 'no' to a demand for things that are unnecessary for getting by as well as detremental to society at large. Pick one: SUVs, power boats, snow mobiles, guns, cable tv, cell phones, beepers, etc.. Not that all of these things are necessary foe SOME people in SOME situations and geographical locations, but not every moron in this fucking country needs one.

[mke]

I think I've seen a Hummer once. Not too many people even consider having such a vehicle, considering oil prices in Europe. Then again, there are lots of Renault Espace, Ford Galaxy type cars, which are pretty huge. There are a lot of streets in Brussels a Hummer couldn't even enter. Unless the driver didn't mind knocking aside parked cars.

[Tanager]

Originally posted by shrugs
Tanager, I was just trying to ruffle some feathers. But you have to admit that there are a lof people out there who think they are concerned about the environment that only know about one area:SUV's. It's almost like an obsession for some.

I suppose I hear the same note struck by people who think they're environmentalists just b/c they joined the Sierra Club and show off their logoed tote bag. There are a lot of these gimps running around.

[RainyDay]

I quit the Sierra Club after their disgraceful positions on transportation issues and immigration. They are totally anti auto to the point they will kill transit funding bills if there is any streets and highways funding attached to it. Just stupid. Their position on immigration is racist, and a lot of local debate about immigration did not reflect well on them. I don't think many people of color belong anymore.

[Troy D]

A while back there was a terrific book review in the New Republic of Keith Bradsher's High and Mighty: SUVs: The World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got that Way. I intend to buy the book as soon as my budget allows. The reviewer compared it to Nader's Unsafe at any Speed in terms of its effectiveness as a critique of the auto industry.

The industry has decided to throw all of its energy into getting extraordinary breaks from Congress on SUVs, and why not? They've got an incredible profit-margin. They're selling unsafe, crappily-built products at outrageous prices. They've lobbied Congress repeatedly to ensure that SUVs are immune from environmental regulations that are enforced on all other cars, not to mention safety regulations, for which SUVs are also exempted. Most people who buy SUVs (i.e. suburbanites) get them because they think they are safer than other cars--what rubbish.

Bradsher says the auto industry has a psychological profile they've developed for SUV buyers, and it motivates their ad campaigns. They've done extensive testing on this. SUV buyers are typically: 1) very anxious/insecure about life in general; 2) interested in convincing themselves and others that they are "adventurous" people who "live on the edge"; 3) unconcerned about what anyone else thinks about their auto-buying habits.

The reviewer concludes that SUVs have to be the most anti-social vehicle ever created. His best line was that we should change the name of the SUV to the "FUV." As in the "Fuck-you Vehicle."

Until I read the review, this hadn't been an issue that I was all that concerned about. But it was a pretty sobering article.

[Douglas]

I saw a Hummer on the Champs Elysee really floundering. Too big and too slow to respond to Parisian see-gap-and-go driving; Almost stationary with all the little cars darting around it.

[Uli]

The first Hummer I ever saw in "civil" use was years ago in a tv feature about Tina Turner. She drove one of those puppies around her Italian villa. I knew then that they would be in one day.

[BFrank]

Originally posted by Rob C
I guess Hummers look sort of cool on those dirt roads, but they look ridiculous parallel-parked on a city street, which is the only place I've seen them. I can't see one without thinking, "Sorry about your penis, dude."

ROTFLMAO!!!

[BFrank]

Classic!!