Hello,

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Well, i was car shopping not long ago for something a bit above-and-beyond the ordinary. A really nice car, think of it as a reward for alot of hard work.

Most of my life i've been a sports car fan, and for many moon dreamed of getting an NSX. Sort of the "practical/drivable/livable" supercar. And test driving the things wasn't a let-down, they're great cars. But with the model year '06 being the last, i turned my attention towards other things. Porsche 911, the new vette (nice), and more.

ultimately, i guess none of the sports cars really did it for me. Too rickety/bumpy/noisy, and i got a huge crush on a Mercedes SL500. Flat out gorgeous car, killer interior, more comfy & quiet than the true sports cars... but it only had two seats, the seats weren't really ones i could snuggle down into and get really cozy, and the doors were a bit clunky when closed... and in the end, i guess i wasn't quite blown away enough. Beemers left me flat - noisy, rough ride, crap for a climate control system (loud/inadequate).

i never test drove an H2, it just wasn't a possibility that i'd get one. the local caddy/hummer dealer (the new STS and DTS are great cars, BTW. everybody already knows the virtues of SRX and escalade) practically begged me to drive an H2, and finally i relented.

I was shocked by some aspects of the big truck. It handles far better than a full size pickup in daily driving. It rides almost lux-car smooth on the highway (arguably at the top fo the lux-SUV ride qualities on the open road), and it's impressively quiet considering what it is (huge, unaerodynamic truck).

And the front seats are, in my opinion and/or for my frame, the most comfortable vehicle seats i've ever sat in. And the interior, while not S or SL class uber-finished, is cozy and snug, and has great ambience for evening drives. And its kind of intoxicating driving around way up there in the air, looking down at the Denalis of the world. Polar opposite, i guess, of my usual sports car inclination.


I think alot of how i fell for the hummer was the beauty-and-the-beast aspect of it. Its so big, and trucky, and insane looking, and i was so expecting a pickup, something crude, silly. And it's so comfortable, and quiet, and smooth riding and snug.

And being season champion last year in the full production stock class of the SCORE offroad racing circuit, a hummer, and built like it is, its a bona fide offroad marvel. And time will tell how often i offroad, but competence is attractive.


I had no intention of test driving any SUV, i've just never liked them, and i've always thought hummers were just sort of ... dumb (i don't mean that impolitely). After enjoying the H2 i took some extensive test drives in other SUVs including the Range & the Escalade. Those two aren't w/o their virtues (indeed, both are lovely trucks) - the Escalade is silly-fast for how big it is, and has a very car-like feel when driving for something so sizeable, the Range is incredibly handsome and comes with a good off-road rep (although i'm not sold on the reality). But neither are better trucks than the H2. The range has a very nice interior, but its kind of boring. A case of interior material quality/normalness (range) -vs- ambiance, comfort & enjoyability (hummer). Both trucks are louder than the H2 when driven in exactly comparable ways (road/speed/day), i used a sound meter to assess that and not my ears, and the noise their interiors suffer from is more annoying - high pitched tire scream is almost totally absent in the hummer. The Mercedes G55 is totally over-the-top in a hummerish wa

 

Fishy story

Hmm, you cant seem to find a european sportscar you like so you get a big suv for half the price instead.

 

[sm=grin.gif][sm=sleeping.gif]

I don't see the problem...[sm=dontgetit.gif]

 

hey welcome to our world... its nice when you finally realize what the h2 looks and feels like from the owners side of the glass. When I bought my h2 my buddy bought a fully loaded crew cab silverado duramax truck the same night. That day when at lunch when we were discussing our upcoming purchases, he felt compelled to make some offhanded hummer hater comment. When I pulled up at the dealership were he was finalizing his purchase, in my beautiful pewter H2 LUX fully loaded with every option, guess who's truck his family wanted to check out?.... it wasn't the silverado. There hasn' been a month go by in the last 2 1/2 years that he hasn't made the comment he should have got an H2.
In this pic you can see the front end of his silverado... sitting there on flat ground, while my family in my H2 were having some fun with his family looking on.


[IMG]local://upfiles/436/01DC1EB95E8E4AA0A2BA6E31EC3A50CA.jpg[/IMG]

 

Hey hummerific, i'm sorry you feel that way.

But, FWIW, it's not nearly as low as 1/2 the price even of that SL500, even if you just left it as-delivered (which isn't as much fun as messing with it a little to give some uniqueness). And what i said is just my take on it all. That 'benz is incredibly pretty, and it's an awesome car, but what i offered above is my $.02. my $.02, that's all.

i'm really excited about getting my truck tomorrow (coming up from iowa), and in fact i don't think i've been as excited about a car since my first one - an '81 oldsmobile cutlass for $800 bucks of rock-pickin money. [8D]

 

I was expecting a silverado-ish experience from the H2. The dealer had to coax me to even get in one and drive around the block... but it is anything but silveradoish. I live in pickup-ville (i'd guess the most common vehicles on the road here are full sized pickups - rams, silverados, and F150s), and my neighbor has the extremely decked-out F150 (king ranch, maybe?), and it's a really far cry from the general niceness of the H2. really far cry. And it's not that inexpensive of a vehicle, i think his was just under $50k.

The dealer (the sales manager there is a good friend of mine, his comments) offered that he thought they could sell alot more if they could get people to drive them, but everybody assumes big rickety cruddy-riding truck, and doesn't even want to take it for a spin.

Brian