ARTICLE: The incredible shrinking Hummer

[TigerH3]

"The incredible shrinking Hummer
BY DALE MCFEATTERS SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE

Avocal wing of the environmental movement dislikes SUVs but really loathes GM’s Hummers, a vehicle that probably attracts as many people as it repels for its sheer excess.

The Hummer began life as the purely military Humvee, now doing yeomanly service in Iraq. But Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted one he could drive on the public roads and had the money to convert one to civilian use. GM saw a marketing opportunity and began selling the Hummer H1, only slightly dumbed down from the military version.

The H1 was unwieldy and largely impractical for everyday driving, so in 2002 GM came out with the trimmed-down H2 built on a Chevy Tahoe chassis, leading one anti-Hummer Web site, in one of its more printable denunciations, to call it “the ultimate poseur.”

Just as H2 sales began to stall, GM brought out the H3, smaller and lighter with gas mileage—16 mpg city, 19 highway—and a price tag— $30,000—that weren’t totally outrageous.

Still, no one foresaw that gas would soon hover around the $3-a-gallon mark, and if ever sales of a vehicle could be expected to crater in the face of high energy prices, it would be the Hummer’s. Au contraire there, Woodsy Owl.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Hummer sales are up 87 percent so far this year and that GM is planning aggressive sales expansions in Europe and Asia—it already sells well in the Mideast—and even manufacturing Hummers in South Africa.

Total sales this year will only be around 71,000 Hummers. The Journal speculates that down the road there may be gas-electric hybrid Hummers and ethanol-fueled Hummers. By the time there’s an H10, they might even be solar-powered."

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