Hummer H2 Concept Stirring Us Up

By Anne Fracassa

Everyone from auto analysts to a city attorney working in the heart of GM country to a 14-year-old coming close to driver's-education classes is atwitter about the new Hummer H2 concept vehicle. Not everybody likes it, but they're interested in it.

"General Motors scored a coup here, something that strikes a resonance with a lot of people," said auto analyst Maynard Gordon. "GM will spend the money to (market) it and the H2 will have a future with GM behind it."

Gordon, whose analysis often appears in magazines and on Internet Web sites, said Hummer has always had a rough-and-tough image and GM's involvement in marketing and selling the H2 will whet the whistle of curious consumers.

To produce it for the masses, the new made-in-Indiana Hummer will be painstakingly assembled in a new plant next door to the present AM General factory in South Bend, creating nearly 2,000 jobs. Analyst John McElroy, speaking just 10 feet from the H2 on the show floor, agreed.

"Getting GM behind the effort to design, manufacture and especially market (the H2) is going to open the market to consumers on a scale that AM General could never do on its own," said McElroy, a onetime editor of Automotive Industries magazine.

"The current Hummer is huge, has no room, is way too wide and way too pricey for the average consumer," McElroy said. "If the H2 retains the rugged, bold vehicle GM promises, it will be a viable alternative to the sport ute market out there."

Jason Majchrzak, a 14-year-old who lives a stone's throw from GM's technical center in the Detroit suburb of Warren, has pictures of Arnold Schwartznegger and his Hummer in his room. Jason tells of two dreams: Becoming an engineer and someday owning a Hummer. But not the H2, which he thinks softens Hummer's commitment to rugged good looks.

"I don't like the rounded out corners at all," Jason said. "When you think of the Hummer, you think of it as a basically boxy style all the way. I'm not saying the H2 isn't OK, it's just not something I would really like. I like the tough look of the original Hummer a whole lot. This one looks wimpy."

Joe Jagadics, 43, loves tough trucks. He owned a Jeep Wrangler for almost a decade until it became impractical for his growing family. Like Jason, Jagadics sees the H2 as a compromise Hummer - something not as good as the real thing.

"If I could purchase a Hummer, I would still like to have the big one to be able to go wherever I would want to take it," said Jagadics, an auto engineer from Canton Township, Mich., west of Detroit. "There's a market out there for the H2, that's for sure. People will want it. But the Hummer is the Cadillac of 4-wheel drive. That shouldn't change."