How the Hummer went from military vehicle to hip-hop icon and Cybertruck rival

The Hummer was created by General Motors as a military vehicle, it then became a flashy truck for hip-hop stars, and it’s now a Cybertruck rival.

We can’t think of any other vehicle that had a similar trajectory.

Somehow, this massive truck built by GM enjoyed three successful careers that were completely separate and different.

And, with the new one, GM has reinvented it once again.

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Hummer H1 – A road truck that broke the mold

The Hummer H1, the first street-legal Hummer, was the slightly reworked civilian version of the military Humvee.

‘Humvee’ is just everyone’s best attempt at turning the initials ‘HMMWV’ into a usable word.

The military loves making acronyms out of things, and the HMMWV is no exception.

It stands for High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, since you’ve asked.

The Humvee was introduced in 1985, and its ‘civilian’ brother, the Hummer H1 was launched in 1992.

The H1 was surprisingly close to its military twin, which means it was very heavy and uncomfortable, and it had a transmission tunnel in the middle that was so wide you almost need to raise your voice to talk to your passenger.

It was available with five different V8s, four of which were diesel, but that didn’t change the fact that its fuel economy was really bad.

It’s a rough-looking thing, but that’s probably why it caught on, like those Brutalist buildings in parts of Eastern Europe that are so ugly they’re almost fascinating.

Hummer H2 – the unofficial ‘rap-mobile’

The Hummer H2 was launched in the early 2000s, back when hip-hop was all about ‘bling bling’ and chrome wheels with spinners, like the ones you see in the clip above courtesy of Hillyard’s Rim Lions.

The H2 was a lot more refined than its predecessor but also a lot more brash, and it lent itself well to particularly horrible tuning jobs, like the one pictured below.

It was an incredibly loud vehicle, and that’s probably why it became some sort of unofficial rap-mobile, like a poster boy for that era.

In the early 2000s, you could turn on MTV at a random hour of the day and the chances of ending up watching a rap music video with a Hummer H2 in it were very high.

Below: Hummer H2 with ‘spinners’, ie wheels fitted with extra spokes that spin

Like the H1, it was square, tall, long and heavy.

It was available with two V8s, this time gas only, and, like every other Hummer, it was available as a pick-up truck or as an SUV.

Interestingly, the H2 was built on the GMT820 platform, which means it had a long list of ‘relatives’ in the GM family that looked nothing like it.

Among others, this platform was used by Cadillac for the Escalade, and Chevy for the Tahoe, Suburban, GMC Sierra and Silverado.

The H2 was followed by the H3 (below), which was a lot smaller and a bit more sensible.

Interestingly, sales numbers were nearly identical.

In the U.S., GM sold around 153,000 H2s in total, and 159,000 H3s.

The electric one

After a decade-long hiatus, General Motors brought back the Hummer under the GMC brand.

The new model, unveiled 11 years after the H3, is called the Hummer EV, and it is available as a truck or an SUV.

Unlike its predecessors, the Hummer EV is now all about tech.

Among other things, the Hummer EV ‘invented’ the crab-walk feature that other manufacturers used as inspiration for similar systems.

The one thing it definitely has in common with the H1, H2 and H3 is the price.

The Hummer EV is an expensive vehicle, coming in with an MSRP of around $100,000, around the same as the Cybertruck Cyberbeast, which makes sense considering the Cybertruck and the Hummer are in the same market bracket.

Sales were slow in the first and second year, but they picked up last year, when GMC sold nearly 14,000 units.

It’s going to be interesting to see what GM is going to do with the next Hummer, but that’s still a few years away.

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