Hummer hatred becomes a social movement

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General Motors said today that it was in talks with unnamed parties to sell its Hummer brand. Reports suggest that those bidders are in India, Russia and China. Be they Indian, Russian or Chinese, whoever buys Hummer may be in for a nasty surprise.

It seems impossible now, but in 2006, 71,524 Hummers sold in the U.S., according to Autodata Corp., making the steroid-enhanced brand one of the best performing and fastest growing in the General Motors Corp. empire at the time.

How things have changed. Through the first six months of the year, only 16,158 Hummers found their way off lots, and in the most recent month just 2,032 sold, a 60% slide from the previous June. To put that in perspective, people bought more Land Rovers, Smart cars and Porsches in June.

How America’s love affair with these rolling symbols of the national spirit of largess, or at least largeness, soured so fast is a curiously potent reminder of just how dramatic and fast consumer tastes can change when confronted by things like, uh, skyrocketing gasoline prices. For GM, and Hummer in particular, the worm has turned.

The worm has turned so far, in fact, that it seems the only thing cool about Hummers these days is being able to hate them. In recent months, a whole subculture of Hummer disgust has stepped out of the petri dish and into popular culture, with the oversize SUVs now finding themselves squarely at the front of America’s culture wars as Hummer defenders put their affairs with the monstrous machines on terms oddly reminiscent of the 2nd Amendment. (‘You can have my Hummer when you pry it from my cold dead hands.’)

Perhaps the shining example of this national mood can be found at a site called FUH2.com. The title is an abbreviation for an act — in language inappropriate for a family newspaper (and being such a newspaper, we’ll have to let you navigate there on your own) — that encourages Hummer owners to perform an intimate act with themselves. A particular target is the H2 model, which has no fuel economy rating because it’s too heavy to be rated by the federal government.

So it came as no surprise last month when GM, ever eager to cultivate a green image for the company (beyond promises of the electric-powered Volt), climbed off the Hummer bandwagon, hired Citibank and pushed for a sale in double the time, as reported here in the L.A. Times.

So for ex-Hummerites, what’s the alternative? Apparently, even a seemingly earth-friendly ride is just another rolling target, these days, as this site illustrates.

— Ken Bensinger