Hummer
It started out as a military vehicle, built by AM General as a more capable and much larger replacement for the venerable Army Jeep. After a starring role in the 1991 invasion of Saddam Hussien’s Iraq, well-heeled movie stars and hedge fund managers everywhere decided they had to have one to show off their macho cred. By the turn of the century, Hummer had become General Motor’s 8th brand. A decade later, the Great Recession would sweep away Hummer even more easily and quickly than Humvees had once helped swept away the Iraqi army.
As early as 1979, The Army let it be known they were looking to replace the tried and true jeep with something more capable. by 1983, several manufacturers had submited prototypes for evaluation as a High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle. AM General, a subsidiary of American Motors, won the contract. HMMWVs first saw duty in 1989 during operation Just cause in panama. Soldiers soon nicknamed it the HUMVEE. it became a tv star in 1991, as dozens of embedded journalists reported on operation desert storm crouched in a humvee’s back seat.
legend has it, action movie star arnold schwarzenegger lusted for a humvee as soon as he one them on the set of a movie he was making
when he found out they were not available for civilian sales, Arnold lobbied AM General to sell them in civilian trim. he assured them that all the other 800 pound gorillas in hollywwod would want one…especially future governors like himself (center) and jessie ventura (left)
of course, this wasn’t the first automotive brand spawned by war
with development costs already paid for by goverment contracts, Am General quickly saw the wisdom of selling a few thousand more humvees to regualr folks…or at least folks regular enough to pony up $112,695 before options. The marketing suits came up with a suitable brand name, and the hummer h1 hit the streets in 1992.
Genral motors purchased the Hummer brand from AM General in 1999. They proceeded to develop a more civilized version. built off a chevy tahoe chassis, the hummer h2 debuted in 2002 . it looked almost as tough as its big brother, but wasn’t. This suburban assult vehicle was the perfect thing for dropping the kids off at school, then heading off to do battle in the parking lot of the Costco.
the Hummer h3 followed in 2004. it was built on the chevy colorado midsized pickup platform, and could thus accommodate any of the new atlas series OHC in-line 4, 5 and 6 cylinder engines. rather than use the deliciously smooth and powerful 270hp 6, the suits at gm for some reason chose the 220hp 5-banger to propell this 4600lb '“midsized” brut. a few years later they spent a bunch of money addapting the chassis to accept a pushrod v8 that was a lot heavier and not much more powerful than the OHC 6. Those are the kinds of stupid decisions that a car company makes on its way to going bankrupt…
…which GM was in 2009. Then, in seeking a bailout from the federal government, the general thought it imprudent to include the gratuitous hummer in their reorganization plans. it probably didn’t help hummer’s cause that an awful lot of now demonized subprime mortgage brokers had driven them.
but hummer didn’t die because people didn’t want them - or that they weren’t profitable. the brand simply became persona non grata in 2009 society. using the modern venacular, we might say hummer was “cancelled.” But large, heavy, massively powerful, and over the top vehicles seem to be cool again…as long as they’re electric. So now gm is reintroducing hummer as an all ev sub-brand of gmc (electricity, hum, get it?) All 7,200 LBS of The 2022 hummer ev edition 1 will debute this year with 1000hp and a starting price north of $108,000, thank goodness for ev tax credits.
copyright@2021 by Mal Pearson