GM purchased HUMMER in 1988. Big mistake. Or was it? HUMMER is an enormously strong automotive brand. Its products are as instantly recognizable as the Chevy Malibu is utterly forgettable. In terms of the cultural gestalt, the automotive world hasn’t seen such a divisive vehicle since the days when a Rolls Royce was THE emblem of economic exploitation. HUMMER said I’ll see your class warfare and raise you . . . an imperialistic invasion! Love it or loathe it, you’ve got to love it or loathe it. If [like] nothing else, there’s a Hirst of modern artists who’d give their left ear to create an object as controversial, as deeply polarizing and emotionally engaging as the HUMMER H2. The H3 not so much. Now, we could debate how GM could have made HUMMER a financial success. But that would be a bit like arguing over how we could have “won” the second Gulf War. So let’s just ask the next most logical question, what can you do with a dead HUMMER?
1. Bury ten HUMMERS nose down in the Iraqi desert – Obviously, this idea is a riff on the Cadillac Ranch. According to the hive mind at Wikipedia, the Texas dead Caddy installation makes a statement “about the paradoxical simultaneous American fascinations with both a ‘sense of place’ — and roadside attractions, such as The Ranch itself — and the mobility and freedom of the automobile.” Crap.
The Ant Farm’s artistic collaboration’s seminal work was a condemnation/celebration of America’s conspicuous consumption and planned obsolescence, back when the Cadillac brand represented middle class automotive aspirations (1974), in the heart of “Bigger is Better” America. [The display’s graffiti desecration is a real shame.] By the same token, a collection of dirt-diving HUMMERS in Iraq would be a condemnation/celebration of America’s militaristic ambitions, in the heart of oil-producing manifest destiny-land. The fact that H2s are not HUMVEEs only makes the irony more delicious. Hoo-rah!
2. Turn them into beach huts – The HUMMER H2’s distinctly over-sized, architectural, non-aerodynamic design makes it a pig on the road, with gigantic blind spots and pathetic interior packaging. And yet, there’s something deeply compelling about the vehicle’s unremitting, slab-sided angularity. GM recognized this USP (Unique Selling Point), to the extent that they asked their doomed dealers to spend $1 million each to build Quonset Hut-style showrooms. But, as you can see from the original example above, they missed the fact that there was no arc to the HUMMER story.
But . . . if you remove the H2’s wheels and hollow out the inside, the vehicle would make a compelling, mini-me militaristic structure. It says fortress. Place a row of modified HUMMER H2s on the beach, and they would present an entirely practical place for bathers to change into their bathing suits and store their umbrellas, radios, beer-filled refrigerator, etc. The irony works well: we’re here, on the beachhead, enjoying the fruits of freedom that our soldiers died to protect. Hoo-rah!
Alternatively, how about a duck blind? Guns and HUMMERS are like porn stars and white, spiked high heels.
3. Convert them to run on battery power, plaster them with EV decals and drive them – Electric and hybrid car drivers have an image problem. Some parts of society (you know who you are) see owners of alt power whips as wimpy, tree-hugging slaves suffering from hypocritical, holier-than-thou eco-fashionista-ism. Just as John Lennon’s psychedelic Roller took the mickey out of Rolls’ class warrior problems, a battery-powered H2 would “solve” HUMMER’s problems in a heart beat. Humor can do that. It would be too late for the brand, obviously. But not too late for fans of the brand. Oh, and the fact that an EV HUMMER H2 wouldn’t be able to sit four people (which it can barely do at the moment) and would only travel, say, 50 miles on a charge, has nothing to do with it. Obviously.
4. Turn them into convertibles – The H2 is almost as prone to rolling as Cheech and Chong. So it’s not the most logical candidate for a chop top. But c’mon, look at this thing! At a single stroke—or extended encounter with a determined Sawzall operator—the H2 has been transformed from an automotive paean to Living in a Box’ eponymous single into a deeply desirable off-roader. Alternatively, it turns the H2’s embodiment of the Wild, Wild West’s villains “kill, crush, destroy” mantra into “I’m a Barbie girl!” Or something like that. While I’d be tempted to install a slightly more utilitarian interior, perhaps an even more eye-searing color could change my mind (red leather, yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather?).
5. Display crashed H2s at High Schools – I’m a big fan of the current trend of parking smashed vehicles in front of high schools, to warn teenage drivers not to drink and drive (or take a left turn on red). Ever since the pussies in charge of Driver’s Ed stopped showing gory accident movies, the system has singularly failed to create a subconscious link between driving and decapitation. And disfigurement. Let the IIHS smash a bunch of H2s into Duesenbergs, and then plop one of these bad boys on the lawn. The youth of America will know that SUVs are no defense against the dark arts, still perpetuated by the dead-but-still-living he-who-must-not-be-named (General Motors).
You could drain all of the fluids out of one (or several), dump it in the ocean and turn it into a reef. Our Hummer dealership still exists, but they now sell Subarus there.
Ship them to Iraq, fill them full of Young Republicans (but put Cheney and Rumsfield in the lead vehicle) and let them drive around for 2 years.
Hummer might be a cultural touchstone, but as a business decision it was idiotic. Did GM really think the for want for overpriced gas guzzling vehicles was an expanding market? This is just another example of GM buying high and selling low. For a company supposedly run by a bunch of accountants they’ve made a lot of bad financial decisions.
Hummer could have worked if they only sold the H1 and nothing else as a super-expensive niche vehicle.
They wouldn’t have sold many, but would have a made a good profit on those they did sell, and the kind of people that would buy it wouldn’t care about gas prices.
Ship them to Afghanistan, fill them full of young Democrats (but put Pelosi and Biden in the lead vehicle), and let them drive around for 2 years.
Snark Off ………..
Send them to China as part of our trade balance payment.
Twotone
#6: HUMMER-henge out in the middle of BFE (c.f. Carhenge in Nebraska)
“HUMMER is an enormously strong automotive brand.” ???
Hmmmm, so make something so ridiculous that it screams for attention and then gets it?
This is the Glenn Beck of the automobile world.
A couple of winters ago, there was a yellow H1 with Texas plates parked outside of the most premium condominium building at the Colorado ski resort I work at. The owner could not take advantage of the heated garage because the H1 could not fit through the standard sized garage door. They had prevailed upon the building management to leave the lobby entry door unlocked and slightly ajar, in order to run an extension cord to the block heater so the diesel motor would survive the routinely sub-zero nights.
Gut them and make salad bars for Kountry Kitchens and the like.
Buy as many as you can for pennies on the dollar and hoard them for 15-20 years until 1) all the kids have grown up reached critical mass and want to buy one at any price at Barrett Jackson. 2) After congress has de-funded all military spending to bail GM out for the 10th time, re-sell the H-1’s for spare parts.
Display a Hummer monument in all the military cemeteries, explaining why we go to war for oil.
Start a band that’s the eco-weenie equivalent of The Plasmatics. Lots of screaming, guitars, and a polarizing figure like Wendy O. Then at the end of each show … KA-BLOOO-IEEEE … they blow up a HUMMER and haul its carcasse to the recycling yard.
I love the picture of that hut. If you are like me, it’s like some sort of magical force that draws me toward it just in case there is something interesting inside. Sometimes it pays off (pity I can’t post pictures). Mostly, I get chased by wasps/hornets or end up stepping in raccoon shit. Fortunately, I’ve never found myself at the wrong end of a gun. I am not looking forward to that.
GM bought hummer in 1998.
Ship them to a desert (anywhere), fill them full of who can’t resist turning a auto blog into a place for their political rants, and let them drive around for 2 years doing…
Who cares what they do?
Make every GM exec drive one until it is 10 years old. It will be a constant reminder of the GM mindset (Something like Jeep is not enough for GM, because WE ARE THE MASTERS OF THE AUTOMOTIVE UNIVERSE!) and give them a taste of GM’s legendary class-leading quality as the miles roll on.
The Hummer may have been a cultural touchstone of the Bush era, but these days that’s not the kind of stone anybody wants to touch.
I’m pretty much a Hummer’hater myself, but in an attempt to be objective, I beleive GM’s major mistake was to double-down on the “big, obnoxious earth-crushing gas guzzler” image INSTEAD of branding Hummer as ‘the real deal’ in ALL sizes of on-road/off-road vehicles. They left themselves waaay too vulnerable to the effects of gas price instability and/or political turmoil.
Had they introduced a credible, reasonably lightweight Jeep Wrangler alternative early on, the environmentalist backlash against Hummer would have been lessened, and when gas prices spiked, Hummer might have avoided being the poster child for conspicuous guzzling.
Hummer would have still been wounded by the gas crisis and financial meltdown as all SUV manufacturers were, but as it is now, Hummer is a fatally damaged brand. This was totally myopic thinking in brand management, and they are paying the price.
@ jpcavanaugh I like that plan,drive the Hummers for ten years.
Right, then we can ask all the people that bought,some of those “top ten luxury imports” to donate them [cause they won’t be worth F.A. anyway] Then we take our ten year old HUMMERS and the broken down, overpriced,overated,imports,and put the whole works into a demolition derby.
Charge a Ten buck’s a head. We tour around all the communities that have been impacted by plant closing’s,and donate the money to charity.
The Hummer H1 was the civilianized version of the AM General HUMVEE. It was never known for economy or even reliability, but for its durability, adaptability and capability. Perhaps the mistake GM made in picking up the nameplate was in trying to capitalize on the military mistique without the pedigree.
Will there ever be a 2010 H3? Or has the last one ever already come down the assembly line?
^ GM picked up the Hummer as a brand in the hopes of creating it’s own Jeep. That’s not a far fetched premise given that the HUMMV was intended as a replacement for the M151. It also rode well the wave of SUV popularity. However there was and is one problem. People bought surplus Jeeps after WWII for utility purposes, because they were inexpensive and they had four wheel drive. They were the only thing their size that went anywhere in their day. The H-1 was a novelty more than a necessity, there were plenty of vehicles that could do about as much for a lot less, and they’d fit in your garage.
I’ve met few people who actually wanted a Hummer and fewer still who needed one. I’ve driven the real deal, military HUMMV and as good as it was for what it was intended to do, I never really wanted one in my driveway. People can do what they want with their time and money, and the H-1 and H-2 simply said I’ve made it and I want the biggest show of wretched excess to prove it. Never mind that there were SUV’s that rode better, handled better and were more economical in every way, the point was making a bigger splash, and my did it ever.
+1 carguy
+1 sfdennis1
The H1 is the real deal, and the basic concept of Hummer as an off road brand to compete with Jeep/Land Rover had merit. Then came the H2, more hideous than an Aztec, all wanna be pimp and chrome grill with a cheap interior on a beefed up pickup chassis for 50K. It was the SUV equivalent of an white on white on white 80s coke dealer Mercedes, or a fully riced 90s Honda. Gold chain me to the max baby!
By totally embracing every bad SUV stereotype and effectively becoming a caricature of itself, the H2 destroyed Hummers ability to live on past the SUV fad era. If the H2 had been more like the H1 or H3, Hummer owners would not have become the laughing stocks they are and the marque would still have a future.
Invite owners to a drag race with a Subaru Forester XT festooned with Obama stickers, and when they lose, force them to watch Michael Moore movies for 24 hours straight, with their eyes pinned open, Clockwork Orange-style.
anyone know any details about this beauty of an off-road family truckster?
http://spotsunknown.com/international-travelall/
Or you could just hook a big chain on it and use it for a boat anchor.
Legalize driving over the cars ahead of you. Hummer would go through the roof.
ronin :
October 20th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Will there ever be a 2010 H3? Or has the last one ever already come down the assembly line?
Almost certainly. They are made at the same plant as the Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon, two other vehicles that aren’t selling well. The plant is scheduled to close in 2012, although all three vehicles were scheduled to be redone at that time and built at another plant. Sales of all three vehicles are pathetic, so who knows if that will actually happen-GM might just kill them off and stop selling small pickups altogether.
Get 20 conservatives in 20 Hummers, and 20 liberals in 20 Priuses. Let them take turns running into each other head on at about 65mph. Comedy gold.
Take 20 Hummers and position them in a square shape to mimic a boxing ring. Put Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh in one corner and Al Gore and Bill Clinton in the other. Larry King can be the ref and let the best group win.
Hey Robert… do what you like with the Hummers but leave the Duesies alone.
Won’t someone think of the children?
I propose a Hummer Forgiveness Park where dead Hummers could be arranged as an apology to future generations for why this generation was so wasteful and yet unable to budget past next week.
Big American flags, side-exhibits of the perils of obesity, infotainment rather than thinking etc.
I even have a catchy subtitle for the theme;
The future; think about it today.
I propose a Hummer Forgiveness Park
I hope the balloon boy’s father is there on permanent display.
They should have made it even more macho. Use a supercharged Chevy big block 454. At about 700 hp. It would still sell. As a towing vehicle, it is unsurpassed. Their stupid knee jerk decision to sell the brand, makes as much sense as killing Pontiac and keeping Buick.