April 2008
Seems like it's been too long since we examined the short bus topic... what's that smell?
Yes, it's H2 cologne!
It's getting so you can't park your H2 outside your garage without fear of it being vandalized. Clueless H2 owners might think they are unloved because the rest of humanity is jealous of their pride and joy, but it's a little more complicated than that. The problem is best explained on the web site FUH2.com, which is where we gathered some of the material on this page. Sorry, we can't provide a hot link to that site because it is our policy never to link to a page that promotes such shocking images of 7000 pound eyesores!
Where is the love?
Rumors of the demise of the H2 are all over the internet, perhaps as soon as the 2010 model year. Due to the $4/gallon gas price it helped to cause, H2 has seen sales drop by 27% in a year and 46% comparing February 2007 to February 2008. Perhaps another good reason for GM to pull the plug is safety-related. Fully 33% of vehicle deaths occur in rollovers, which make up just 3% of crashes, and are dominated by high center of gravity vehicles. Experts believe that a car's roof should be able to withstand 4 times the vehicle weight to fully protect occupants during a rollover. That's not going to be an easy engineering task for America's most fearsome highway killing machine. The present NHTSA safety test for cars is 1.5X weight, while large vehicles like the H2 have always been exempt. Read the statistics, you are more likely to die in an SUV than a car, and you're even more likely to kill someone else which might cause you the inconvenience of hiring an H2-driving lawyer who totally understands your personal situaton for $500/hour.
Thanks to McDonalds and General Motors, 42,000,000 tiny plastic Hummers have been given away in Happy Meals. So your supersized kids can learn all about "healthy choices" in personal transportation. Hope your kids washed their hands after they played "rollover", those cute little H2s are made in China so what's the chances of them containing traces of element number 82?
The image of the H2 being "greened" thanks to the availability of flex-fuel option to burn E85. As if the H2 owner is concerned about being perceived as concerned about the environment. Future H2 owners can take further pride in the reduced gas mileage that E85 provides, perhaps as bad as 8 to 11 MPG. In a larger sense, E85 really isn't the answer to the world's energy problems, but let's leave that discussion for another day.
Lately we're told by General Motors marketing department that the Hummer line is "purpose built". Not just a status symbol, it's more like Lassie when Timmie is stuck in the well. Good one! Let's take a look at some videos of these purpose-built parking lot cruisers...
You'd think that a 7000 pound vehicle would just what you'd need to conquer the great outdoors. The one below has a little problem with the steering. Which is a typical problem for H2, even during test drives by car magazine writers!
Purpose build vehicles indeed. Let's sum up the entire Hummer experience for the owners. Here's a bumper sticker the rest of us would like to put on your vehicle...
Does this truck make my butt look big?
or make me look like a big butt?
Or how about?
What would Satan drive?
Don't answer that!
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