Hummers Overfloweth

[andretti]

Link to article and pictures:
http://themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.c...verfloweth.html

Thursday, November 03, 2005
Hummer Overfloweth
The word around town was that the Hummers weren't moving. It looked like high gas prices and a White House reversal on fuel conservation meant that fewer "W" bumper stickers would find their exposed sticky sides mating gloriously with the smooth rear bumper of an H2, somewhere between the tow loop and the access hole for a Class 3 hitch.

We were skeptical at first. Sources can be unreliable, but the scuttlebutt was that inventory had been building for months now and the local Hummer dealer had panicked. He had begun storing his Hummer inventory at an undisclosed location, far from the dealer showroom so as not to spook jittery, prospective buyers with the mounting number of unsold H2s and H3s.

When an anonymous caller phoned in with the location, we were off. "The rear parking lot of the Hyatt Westlake Plaza Hotel", he said, just before the line went dead.

TMTGM investigative sleuths Erik Ustin and Ray Pizzuti grabbed your still somewhat skeptical editor, and after stopping at Human Resources to pick up a few "half-off at Togo's" coupons we scurried past security, through the main entrance, and out to the parking lot.

A security guard spotted us and yelled, "Hey you three, stop right there!"

We froze in place, eyeing our surroundings, thinking quickly, instantly evaluating possible courses of action.

"One of you didn't scan out! Get back here and run your badge past the scanner again and make sure it beeps this time!"


ooo


OK, we're not sure where this was headed or how long and how silly it would be enroute, so we'll just get to it. The Hummer dealer in this part of Southern California is apparently having trouble moving his merchandise. After a row of Hummers was spotted behind the Hyatt Hotel, three of us went on a reconnaissance mission to find out more. Here's the first picture we snapped:


Click to enlarge

Doesn't look like much - about 25 H3s in the far corner of the parking lot, and the next aisle over was pretty much the same. But then when we came around the corner we saw this:


Click to enlarge ... really, click it

That's a lot of Hummers, all H3s, lined up neatly waiting for someone to take them home and love them. Looking to the right there were more, so we walked all the way down to the end of the row and snapped this picture:


Click to enlarge ... now here, we will insist - click it and make it bigger

That's the same view as the previous picture, just taken from about 30 Hummers further down to the right. Behind this hotel were about 150 Hummers - about 80 in this row alone - almost all H3s, along with eight or ten original H1s.

A police car drove by slowly - surely he wondered why we were taking pictures and laughing, but then he looked closer, recognized the unthreatening physiques of three software engineers, spotted our badges, and quickly lost interest.

Someone from the dealership pulled in with another H3, so we wandered over and asked how business was these days. He said something about hurricanes and gas prices, then we asked where the H2s were. He said, "They're at the other lot".

Hmmm...

Thrilled and amused as we were, we'd only learned part of the story. After getting directions we proceeded to lot #2, while placing a few quick bets with an over/under quickly set at 60. The thinking here was that the despite looking like a Jeep Cherokee on steroids, the H3s were about $20K less expensive than the H2s and had respectable fuel economy (16 city / 19 highway is what the sticker said) - maybe the dealer had just placed a very large, poorly timed order, a few months back.

Surely the H2 inventory was under control.

Pulling into lot #2, the "under" looked liked it would be the clear winner - forty, fifty tops, from the first looks of it:


Click to enlarge ... this one's up to you

Then we walked down to the end of the aisle to see this:


Click to enlarge ... go for it

That's about fifty H2s on the left, and a bit of congestion in the middle as the Hummers appear to be entering the lot at a rate far exceeding the rate at which they leave. After walking down to the end of this aisle we spied another aisle of about the same length stretching around the corner:


Click to enlarge ... again, we will insist, make it bigger

When the counting was done, there were about 150 H2s in lot #2, for a grand total of around three hundred Hummers, just looking for someone to love them. In the above picture notice the attendant and the red 5-gallon gas cans - based on a brief conversation with this young man, we didn't sense any love from him.

Apparently the thrill of driving Hummers back and forth between the remote storage lot and the dealer showroom wears off quickly, as each round trip requires that another five gallons of fuel be dispensed in order to ensure a complete round trip.

We've talked about SUVs in these pages before, having developed a California SUV Fill Up Index which we then updated as gas prices in this area hit $2.80 and then $2.90 per gallon. What a person drives or how much fuel they consume matters little to us, so long as they leave some gas at the pumps for others and don't run us over on the freeway.

The reason that the story of rapidly rising Hummer inventory is so interesting and so amusing, is that America's most ostentatious Sport Utility Vehicle, the Hummer SUV, is a metaphor for America in the world today - overweight, overpriced, inefficient, and unloved.

posted by Tim at 6:21 AM - Permalink - Home

23 Comments:
Link
http://themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.c...verfloweth.html Edited November 4, 2005 by andretti

[caddycruiser]

Wow, what a story.... :lol: Guess it shows that, in certain areas, even the more civil H3 isn't selling so hot--then again, with about as much grunt under the hood as a riding lawn mower, things like the gas mileage it gets seems irrelevant. Then again, they all still look so cool, I'll take one of each! Edited November 4, 2005 by caddycruiser

[Flybrian]

The reason that the story of rapidly rising Hummer inventory is so interesting and so amusing, is that America's most ostentatious Sport Utility Vehicle, the Hummer SUV, is a metaphor for America in the world today - overweight, overpriced, inefficient, and unloved.

Wow, 'Tim,' good thing you posted this back in 2002 when people might've thought you were witty and insightful instead of in the waning weeks of 2006 when no one cares anymore.

Oh wait...

[FUTURE_OF_GM]

[quote]It looked like high gas prices and a White House reversal on fuel conservation meant that fewer "W" bumper stickers would find their exposed sticky sides mating gloriously with the smooth rear bumper of an H2, somewhere between the tow loop and the access hole for a Class 3 hitch.[/quote]

ALRIGHT... THAT's IT! Right there!!!! Not 2 DAMN sentences into the article the authors bias is BLATANTLY showing...

I'm tired of it... TIRED of hearing these BLEEDING HEART idiots WHINE about a political environment that was decided 2 years ago!!!

"W" is here to stay for the forseable future... There is nothing your incessant nagging, bitching and whining can do about it, SO DEAL WITH IT! (And for the record I hate "W" too)

[quote]but the scuttlebutt was that inventory had been building for months now and the local Hummer dealer had panicked. He had begun storing his Hummer inventory at an undisclosed location, far from the dealer showroom so as not to spook jittery, prospective buyers with the mounting number of unsold H2s and H3s.[/quote]

Ok, first of all... NO ONE has been panicking about anything... Secondly, nice way to make this dealer out to be "The mysterious man" that these "people" always seem to be whining about and "fighting" and thirdly H3 production was just UPPED, so if you think they're "piling up" then you're wrong... It's just the typical fabricated media that's shoved down our throats everyday until we suffocate on our own vomit from STATED trash.

[quote]When an anonymous caller phoned in with the location, we were off. "The rear parking lot of the Hyatt Westlake Plaza Hotel", he said, just before the line went dead.

TMTGM investigative sleuths Erik Ustin and Ray Pizzuti grabbed your still somewhat skeptical editor, and after stopping at Human Resources to pick up a few "half-off at Togo's" coupons we scurried past security, through the main entrance, and out to the parking lot.

A security guard spotted us and yelled, "Hey you three, stop right there!"[/quote]

Dumb hippie drama....

[quote]had respectable fuel economy (16 city / 19 highway is what the sticker said)[/quote]

Nice... a quib obviously about "GM and the EPA lieing about fuel economy"

You know, it's funny that none of these accusations or "EPA method is inefficient" :bs: came up when the Prius was being raved about by your set... NO it's a double standard, Hummers we bitch about, yet Priuses, REVOLUTIONARY Priuses only getting 1 or 2 MPG more than you common Cobalt or Civic are written off because of "EPA standards" or "problems with the technology" which is another story all together.

It's the typical two-faced, lie to the masses to convert them to our convoluted truth, tactics of the EXTREME left media... Hell, even the regular media is LOSELY based on facts and assumptions.

[quote]surely he wondered why we were taking pictures and laughing, but then he looked closer, recognized the unthreatening physiques of three software engineers, spotted our badges, and quickly lost interest.[/quote]

"laughing"

Who surely all drive Civics and chastise people like me for not being utilitarian.

[quote]just looking for someone to love them.[/quote]

More hippie drama... No really, I insist, more hippie drama...

[quote]Apparently the thrill of driving Hummers back and forth between the remote storage lot and the dealer showroom wears off quickly, as each round trip requires that another five gallons of fuel be dispensed in order to ensure a complete round trip.[/quote]

Yeah... I'm sure of it.... Like the storage lot is Oh, say, at worst fuel economy 50 miles from the dealership.... Yeah... that makes sense, a dealer would rent a storage lot in another town or something.. and that's assuming only 10 MPG.

Sounds like these GREENIES are embellishing the truth a lot... But I'm sure everyone who reads their little circle will believe it as gospel. Afterall, it's not like they're the smartest people on earth... I mean, if they were and all, they would've CERTAINLY found a way to defeat "the man" by now... You know, "the man" (singular) who runs and ruins their lives... "The man" that controls everything and sells everyone out.... "The man" that kills all life through his destruction of the environment.. You know "The" business "man" like ME

[quote]The reason that the story of rapidly rising Hummer inventory is so interesting and so amusing,[/quote]

[quote]is that America's most ostentatious Sport Utility Vehicle, the Hummer SUV, is a metaphor for America[/quote]
So america is rich, powerful, conquering, sheltering, rugged, tough, independent, stylish and elegant?!!?!?!?!?

See, TWO can play the adjective game.... It's not hard. And what's cool is my perception of the Hummer is REALITY based, where yours, like your view of peace love and happiness for all IS NOT

[quote]overweight, overpriced, inefficient, and unloved.[/quote]

And this being your view of america, and your spreading of this disdain, instead of pride to be one of the most powerful and greatest empires in history and respect for the fallen that paved the way for displays of ignorance such as this, is EXACTLY why we are falling from greatness AND why you will OBVIUOSLY, yet OBLIVIOUSLY pay the ultimate price by being BOUGHT while this nation is sold out.

I thought I might humor you guys with some of my off the wall opinions, since these jobless yuppies did.

*THIS* is the kind of crap I've been subjected to all of my life growing up in the area that I have and *THIS* is precisely why I am like I am, which is not tolerant of *THIS*

[cmattson]

You might want to try reading the remaining postings on the website:

Many of you seem to think that the Hummer piece was investigative journalism when in fact much of it was satire

and

I talked to the sales manager at 1000 Oaks Hummer, Steve Gansert, who says all those Hummers do belong to them. He says the 300 trucks are a normal selling inventory for them, that they only have parking for about a dozen trucks right at the dealership, so lease these local parking lots to store their unsold inventory

Lastly:

the lot also held 170 Infinitis and 45 Hondas

[FUTURE_OF_GM]

Yeah.. My bad.. I didn't read the actual blog, just the article... Oh well, what is said is said and what is done is done.