Oil price victim: Hummer up for sale

[LongTomH]

Source: The Guardian UK

Arnold Schwarzenegger and David Beckham are the emblems of the end of an American economic era. Each owns at least one Hummer, the giant SUV designed around the army's Humvee personal troop transporter.

But the Hummer has fallen out of favour and was last week put on the block by General Motors. It is little wonder. Who would want to buy a beast that does nine miles to the gallon and costs more than $100 - £50 at the pump is a small fortune to Americans - to fill up?

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jun/08/generalmotors.automotive

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I'm sorry for the GM workers who will lose their jobs; but, I am going to be so glad to see these God-awful, ugly, boxy, militaristic, wasteful monstrosities leave the road.

In Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle's novel: Inferno, the authors had their protagonist looking for a vehicle to get around Hell in. He decided to look for a Cadillac, saying (and I paraphrase) "There ought to be Cadillacs in Hell! Every time I've cut off or nearly been driven off the road,it was someone in a Cadillac!"

I feel exactly the same way about Hummers! The Hummer drivers I've encountered have, in the majority, had the instincts of a bully. They seem to feel they own the road by right of wealth and pure mass of vehicle.

And, for your information: I'm basically a universalist. The only time I believe in Hell is when I'm driving - or contemplating the antics of our current crop of conservatives!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. My bad.

I thought it was something else.

:blush:

[mitchtv]

20. as in the bunper sticker

" If I'd wanted a Hummer, I'd have asked your sister"

[Ravy]

2. Maybe if you were "ShortTomH" you would see more of a need to drive a Hummer. nt.

[bahrbearian]

5. Hey , I drive a Hummer and my "Short Tom" is 5 inches, and the women I go with ,love it.

They just don't like watching me climb in and out of the Hummer. They say its Pathetic.

[scarface2004]

3. what about the kid who built a hummer...

and drove straight down the hill to beat the other kids in the soap box derby commercial a couple of years ago...maybe he can buy the company.

[onehandle]

4. That was a clever commercial. Great Who song.

Better than the small penised dudes that buy the God awful machine.

[DUlover2909]

15. People should make a bumper sticker that says "SMALL PENIS ON BOARD"

and put them on hummers they see parked.

[kimmylavin]

18. Saw a great one:

"Nice truck. Sorry about your penis."

(Laughed my ass off at that one...)

[DUlover2909]

34. hahahah love it

[Art_from_Ark]

35. Oh, for crying out loud

Men have any number of reasons for buying these gas-guzzling behemoths, but "small-penis syndrome" is not at the top of the list.

[Diane R]

6. I always laugh when I see on. I figure the driver is compensating for something, KWIM?

[JeanGrey]

7. Well, me too but I doubt seriously if either AS or DB will

have trouble affording the gas.

[Plucketeer]

8. Trouble?

Like W, AS and DB haven't even noticed gas prices yet. :nopity:

[JeanGrey]

36. And they never will.

[Warpy]

9. I used to see them around the air base here

but I haven't seen any of them on the road for months. I have a feeling the wife is being left the monstrosity to fill out of the household budget and she's taking the bus to the grocery the last week of the month.

The things were always butt ugly and I understand they were pretty miserable to drive, so I imagine even their owners are relieved to park them.

Other than the men driving onto the base, the only other ones I saw were being driven by trophy wife type women who didn't look like they were enjoying the driving experience.

[Nipper1959]

10. Typical American car company

never forward looking, building shit they shouldn't have built in the first place. If they would have invested in hybrids are other efficient vehicles these workers wouldn't be losing their jobs right now.

[CatholicEdHead]

11. It was a failed attempt by GM to get into the Jeep market

Even Jeeps are better with fuel than the Hummers ever were. I wonder what the GM VP is doing who had the idea to start up this brand?

[Alcibiades]

24. Hummer started out as an AM General project

Sold the brand to GM in 1998, but still did the manufacturing.

In a way, this is worse: GM didn't even have some VP who came up with this, instead, some GM VP got the bright idea to buy the rights to someone else's bad (but successful at the time) idea.

[seemslikeadream]

12. Are they big enough to put a bathroom in?

Maybe I could live in one

[Carnea]

23. I have driven the H2 and they are not all that roomy.

They have an awful image of course but in reality they are no different than say a Range Rover or an Audi S4 Avant.

Personally I think that they are fairly horrible vehicles. But I still have to laugh when some wanker in her Volvo wagon blames Hummers for the gas crisis.

[GETPLANING]

25. Range Rovers are as good as they say

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06jmReDezek

Enjoy this video. Top Gear compares the Range Rover to the Cadillac Escalade and Hummer H-2.

[Carnea]

27. I agree no comparision

Range Rover is a better car but it has "rightfully for what it is" horrible mileage.

[daleo]

13. The hummer isn't so much the victim of high oil prices

As it is a contributor.

[JohnnyRingo]

14. Buy High, Sell Low

As the world's worst trader, I thought I invented that.

I remember when GM said in the '90s; they were selling the fuel sipping Cavaliers at a loss to meet CAFE econony standards while the company focused on more profitable SUVs. GM and the other domestics gambled on gas guzzling glitz and larger than life luxery instead of looking down the road at building high end economy cars.

They continued down the hole even as gas prices spiked, buying Hummer at the short lived peak of popularity. Now they're faced with the same fate Hummer owners realize:

How much can I sell this for with gas prices at $4 and climbing?

[a la izquierda]

16. You should see the Hummer that drives around here...

okay, so it's a black, lifted H3. It is tinted out. The license plate on it says Nine11 (apparently, the guy must be a cop, because the actual license plate itself is one only cops in this state can get). My husband noticed one day that the stupid thing has fake machine gun turrets on it. He nearly peed his pants when he saw them.

I guess the owner works in my apartment complex, or owns the place or something. What a wiener.
Edit for clarification.

[Hobarticus]

17. You have GOT to post a picture!!!

Puh-leeeeze?

[a la izquierda]

19. okay, okay, if you insist.

it's quite possibly the most ridiculous shit i have ever seen.
keep this thread kicked 'til tomorrow. otherwise, i'll start a new one with a really stupid title about matchbox cars. or thirteen year old boys' wet dream cars. that's pretty much what i can imagine this car to be (and my husband confirms it).

[fudge stripe cookays]

21. Make sure to post a picture...

after you've made a marker sign saying "Wiener" and stuck it under his windshield wiper. :D

[a la izquierda]

22. And then when I get arrested...

will DU be bailing me out?:evilgrin:

[rdenney]

28. Speaking of cops, when are we going to demand that they drive smaller vehicles?

All of those HUGE Ford Crown Victoria's, fitted out with the largest V8 engines they have, are costing all of us a bundle of money come tax time for all that gasoline.

Europe seems to do just fine with small police cars.

[silverojo]

29. Cops need those big, high-powered cars

They need room for the arrested suspects in the back seat, for starters. Also, they need to be able to chase cars that can attain very high speeds, so their cruisers must be able to keep up.

European cops don't have to face half the crap that American cops do. They can manage with little cars.

Now, what I'd like to see is those cruisers converted so they can run on natural gas. Many city buses run on it, and they smell a lot better than those diesel stinkpots.

[rdenney]

33. So where do European police put their suspects? Also with radio and helicopters I don't see the need

for so many large cars any longer.

Perhaps they could substitute some smaller cars into their fleets. After all, most police departments use motorcycles, so why not an economy car too?

I think with the way gasoline prices are going, something will have to give, one way or another in this area.

[lithiumbomb]

31. there's a reason police prefer them

You can fill the trunk with gear, the back seat with suspects, and it's built like a tank. The last of three body-on-frame passenger cars built in this country (the other two are the Lincoln Town Car and Mercury Grand Marquis). It actually doesn't have "the largest V8 that they can have" as it's only sold with the old 4.6L V8, making a modest 250hp or so. Almost exclusively sold as police cars and taxis at this point as it's a durable car and relatively cheap.

A police package requires a fair amount of extra engineering. In the old days you had "cop motor, cop brakes" as Elwood would say. The engine is basically the same as the civilian car today but you do have heavy duty suspension, electrical system, cooling, etc. All the car's safety systems have to work with stacks of radios, center partitions, and so on. If you want the cheapest full size police car, you get the Ford. It's not the latest and greatest, but if you already have 50 of them in the fleet your economies of scale help out with the costs. Alternative purpose built police packages are the Dodge Charger and Magnum, in V6 and V8, and the Chevy Impala in V6 only. So we can demand all we want but their options are pretty limited. There's no financial incentive to build a wide variety of police cars for a market that might be 50k vehicles a year.

The Crown Vic gets 18, the V6 Charger gets 20, and the V6 Impala gets 22mph in the 2008 EPA Combined cycle, fwiw.

It will be moot in a few years anyway, as the Crown Vic will be going out of production by 2011 or so and not replaced.

[Heather MC]

26. We could have had all electric cars and or Hydro cars by now!

TO bad Big Oil is the real power in this country not our Government

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

30. Speaking of Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle, Currently reading

Lucifer's Hammer.
frightening read, love it!

[Cobalt-60]

32. Good vintage stuff

I won't spoil it for you.

[Gabi Hayes]

37. hah hah har...I got cut off on the interstate today in the rain by a .....

Hummer!

good thing I was paying attention for a change.

didn't have a chance to salute, the way I usually do

[mdmc]

38. down with the Bummer

Thank GOD DMC finally killed that thing off.