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2003 Hummer H2 Full-Size Luxury Sport Utility Vehicle
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Schwarzenegger steers the prototype into a Times Square studio of the ABC television network and announces to an audience of automotive journalists that General Motors has acquired the name and marketing rights for the Hummer label from Hummer's parent company, AM General.
General Motors will create a Hummer Division linked to a network of Hummer retail stores, says Schwarzenegger, and will produce a smaller and more friendly version of the H1 under the badge of H2.
The new H2, uses the chassis of GM's Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon wagons for a foundation, with multiple mechanical components including a humongous 6.0-liter V8 engine borrowed from full-size Chevrolet-GMC trucks.
Now flash forward a year: There are no police patrol cars to mark our path, but traffic on the Miracle Mile in Chicago parts magically to make way for the first production versions of H2 -- tinged in each of the seven available shades of body paint, from a somber black and vivid yellow to sage green metallic, pewter metallic, pure white, sunset orange metallic, and bright red metallic -- as auto writers guide the brutal machines in convoy down Michigan Avenue.
One particular H2, dressed in a yellow body and projecting that unmistakable Hummer prow with a seven-slot grille in chrome behind a black tubular metal brush guard, hikes much higher than a conventional wagon and actually stands taller and stretches longer than the H1, although its width is not nearly so extreme.
Compared against Chevy's Tahoe, the H2 wheelbase of 122.8 inches is seven inches longer, although the chassis has been cropped fore and aft to forge brief overhangs -- only 32.6 inches up front and 34.6 inches in back.
This sets up some acute angles (about 40 degrees each) between front and rear body metal and the tires so H2 can scale boulders and bump up stair-step obstacles encountered in the wilds far away from pavement.
A broad track and the extended wheelbase with those brief overhangs and super-sized tires planted at corners of the platform work to make H2 exceptionally stable, and a high ten-inch ground clearance with underbody skid-plate shielding ensures it can navigate rough off-road terrain.
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