[KennyP]

There's an interesting and amusing little blurb in the Sunday NY Times on the declining sales of the Hummer -- the numbers have dropped for 8 consecutive months -- and the comparison to the new MINI.

You can read the article on the web (free registration required) at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/bu...y/23count.html

If you find the article in the print edition, you'll get the bonus of seeing these comparisons:
Hummer H2 vs. MINI Cooper

Height: 6'7" / 4''8"
Length: 15'10" / 11'11"
Weight: 6,400 lbs / 2,524 lbs
Seats: 6 / 4
Gas Tank: 32 gallons 13.2 gallons
Avg MPG: 11 / 30
Horsepower: 316 / 115
Turning Radius: 43.5 ft / 35 ft

-- Kenny

[obehave]

The scary part is that this might mean ex Hummer drivers may now be driving MINIs.

[paul84043]

You know, I never really got the civilian hummer thing. Having been in the army, I am familiar with the military version and think it's a fantastic machine, but in the civilian world it's beyond impractical, bordering on completely ludicrous to own. Not to mention that the cost of ownership is out of this world.
They are so wide, you are constantly pushing other motorists off the road, trying to find a parking space is one step beyond-next to impossible. The gas mileage is horrendous, even worse than my 3/4 ton pickup that gets about 18 MPG, the price puts it completely out of the range of even your upper middle class families, unless they're running a meth lab in the basement. (that was a joke....though I really wonder sometimes how people afford those things.)

It's an over priced, overweight, oversized over glamorized PIG that caters to the rich.

Oh, well....with that in mind, I understand completely why people like them.

I don't find it the least bit surprising that their sales are dropping off. Something's gotta give.
Where I live (Utah county, Utah) 85% of the vehicles you see on the raod are mega SUV's and big trucks. Typically with one person in them, usually chatting on a cell phone to boot, probably heading to the tanning salon, or to the grocery store.
There's one lady in our neighborhood that sells AVON or Mary Kay, something like that, but she drives a jacked up Suburban with monster truck sized tires and the deisel engine. She drives literally door to door in that monster and never even shuts it off. She'll be inside someone's house for 30 minutes with the engine running, come out, climb in, (using the build in ladder!) and drive forward one or two houses, and repeat for the entire morning until she's finished her rounds.
It's a sickening, completely needless waste of gas.
It's really frustrating that we are so blind, we can't see the forest because we're too busy chopping down the trees. Or in her case, putting make-up on them.

[BrantV]

So anyone want to shut her engine off an lock her keys in the car while she's in the house?

Great to see the tide start turning. You think when gas hits $3.00 per gallon she'll at least start shutting her engine off between stops? Although if we didn't have so many people driving in big gas guzzlers there wouldn't be such a discrepancy between supply and demand to drive the price as high as it has.

[Bilbo Baggins]

All to typical here in USofA I'm afraid.

As much as I don't like to pay alot for gas I think that higher prices will kill the rampent SUV and that can only be a good thing. It will after all make more fuel available for the smaller cars.

[lillapoyka]

the thing is, most of the time you have these women driving these huge SUVs who can't handle them (no offense to women in general, just the ones with the big vehicles and no driving skills) You know the kind I'm talking about. Soccer mom driving the kids around and all. it is time the us govt. mandates smaller vehicles and higher milage. Time to put the pinch on the middle east. How about a no humatarian aid policy until they drop the prices. Hell if it can mean put the big pinch on those guys I say drill the heck out of alaska.

Hate to get off topic but I just got rolling

[SteveM3]

If you think the Hummer isn't practical in the states what about those that
are sold in the UK. For real or on film I've never seen one with more than
one person in! Mind you it's rare to see those utes that have a double row
of seats with more than one person as well. Makes all the bikers one step
away from the environmentalists best friends. Now if only they would pedal
those bikes instead of firing up the engine they would be saintlier than any
of us