There are Hummers and then there's the real Hummer: the Hummer H1. This is the civilianized version of the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV or Humvee) that has been a mainstay of the American military since the 1980s. By military standards it's a light-duty vehicle. But they drive around in tanks and fly B-52s. For us civilians, the Hummer H1 is simply gigantic.
The Hummer H1 never went through the normal product development process other vehicles sold to civilians endure. So there are no substantial compromises for comfort in the H1, no thick carpets of sound insulation to minimize road noise, and any comfort feature added to it is strictly an afterthought. In compensation for all that (and much more), what the Hummer H1 offers is absolutely staggering off-road ability and the sort of toughness that, well, wins wars.
Originally developed by AM General, the Hummer H1 centers all its vital drivetrain components along the center of the vehicle. That way, those necessary bits are isolated from small-arms fire and other intrusions. But that also means the engine sits high between the driver and front passenger so they're so far apart that the best means of communication between them is by semaphore.
When the H1 went on sale to civilians in 1992, the only engine offered was the same 6.2-liter Detroit Diesel V8 used in the military version. Backed by a GM TH400 three-speed automatic, that guttural engine makes a racket that could infuriate the Dalai Lama. Eventually there was a gasoline-powered version, but as the H1 was leaving production during the 2006 model year, the Hummer H1 Alpha featured the far more easygoing 6.6-liter Duramax turbodiesel backed up by the excellent Allison six-speed heavy-duty automatic transmission.
Unless there's a likelihood of foreign invasion in your upper-middle-class neighborhood, it's tough to justify living with a vehicle as huge as the Hummer H1. But if covering massive amounts of landscape without the benefit of roads is important, there aren't many vehicles better at it than the Hummer H1.
There may be no substitute for the Hummer H1, but few of us really need one.
