Really, the Hummer of the 2000s was quite a prescient vehicle. Oh, how we mocked back then, with this unnecessarily large, wantonly ugly, staggeringly profligate 4x4 waddled about the place. Even as it came to the UK in 2007 the Hummer was seen as just a bit daft, but now look; you can't move for bold-as-brass, enormous SUVs. They were really onto something...
For 2021 the Hummer will return, and this is the first look at it. Unsurprisingly the styling hasn't been meddled with too much, the iconic grille flanked by recognisable headlights on what appears to be a massive vehicle. The Hummer aesthetic didn't need to change because, to a large extent, the world changed to meet it; styling across the industry has become a bit more overt and brash over the past decade, so why would Hummer change now?
The big difference is coming under the bonnet, where V8s are being ditched for electric propulsion; yep, this is the Hummer EV. Not just any old electric Hummer, either, like those novelty golf cart lookalikes that struggle up the incline to the 15th; this one is going to have up to 1,000hp and up to 11,500lb ft, apparently, which sound more like the outputs for a heavy goods vehicle than a civilian SUV.
Hummer proclaims the new car its "quiet revolution - with zero emissions and zero limits." It's a "super truck", no less, which it's hard to argue with given a projected 0-62mph time of three seconds. They even have LeBron James doing the adverts, and he surely wouldn't get involved with anything less than super. He is, after all, a gamechanger, just like we're promised this car will be...
Perhaps because it can afford to be, GMC has been pretty coy about exact Hummer information thus far. "Details about the GMC Hummer EV's remarkable on- and off-road capabilities will be shared closer to its reveal" is all they're saying, the reveal in question due this autumn. Production won't commence until another 12 months later, presumably because it's a lot simpler to make something that looks like a Hummer for the 2020s - but quite a different challenge to actually manufacture a 1,000hp, battery-powered one. We'll be following with interest...
1 / 4