Hummer Is Dead

Hummers are, for true car lovers, a bit of a laughing stock.  They are big, cumbersome, ugly, smaller inside than they should be and terrible in terms of their fuel economy.  They are also not very cheap.  Worst of all perhaps is that they aren’t fit for purpose.  Such a vehicle should surely be good off-road, yet they are about as much as a BMW X3 – i.e. none at all.  However, they do have one thing going for them.  That thing is character.

One thing though is obvious.  Character cannot save you in today’s climate of $130+ barrels of oil and finally the Americans have woken up to the fact that they live on the same planet as the rest of us.  This means that sales are down by one third and (almost exclusively) gas guzzlers are off the menu globally.

Apparently, General Motors has confirmed that the future of the Hummer brand is hanging on a knife-edge.  Will they sell it on?  Will they keep it?  Then tension is almost too much.  Perhaps it’ll take a revamp to make the range more economical and look like the current trend for crossover coupes before it’ll be successful once again in the US.  Who knows.

Ironically, here in the apparently environmentally concerned UK and Europe sales of Hummers have gone up by 34%.  Mind you, they weren’t selling very many so that figure still only puts about 300 cars on drives.  Is that saying much then?  Well no, not really.  We’re far to sensible and enjoy our Land Rovers just too much thank you kindly.

In light of all the big American brands fault, I still like Hummer.  In the same way that I most American things.  It’s a bit too brash, bold and showy but there’s just something about it.  I’d hate to see all cars look the same and that’s perhaps one of the problems with British roads.  To those 300 people out there I’d like to say I want to see your Hummer (as it were).  Just don’t expect me to foot the bill for a refuelling when you head home.