Hummer is more a symbol of abundance than actual vehicle

When General Motors announced that it would subject its Hummer division to what in the automotive business is known as a "review," you could hear the tree huggers, the hippies, the postmodern Greens, Al Gore's organic peanut gallery and the United Prius Owners of America shove aside their alfalfa sprouts and commence clapping.

No set of wheels since the hapless Edsel has been as persistently reviled as the Hummer. Just recall the Hummer damaged by masked eco-vigilantes in the District of Columbia last year.

GM probably didn't see that coming when it purchased Hummer as a brand name from AM General Corp. in 1999. AM General conceived the Hummer in the 1970s as the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle for tactical military applications. On the battlefield, it has enjoyed a successful 20-year run, despite issues regarding armor that have emerged during its service in Iraq. The civilian version that AM General builds for GM is another story.

Still, it would be a mistake for GM to sell the brand to an upstart carmaker in India or China or to breed it as a hybrid, as some have suggested. GM desperately needs an obnoxious, attention-grabbing brand to keep from turning into a dreary shadow of its former self. And America needs the Hummer to remind us of what has always made our automobiles stand out, from the tailfin 1950s to the muscle car 1960s and '70s: swagger. Americans don't just drive their cars — they proclaim something about themselves by driving them.

It takes a certain kind of man — it's almost always the owner of a Y chromosome — to take a gander at the Hummer, in all its broad, burly, paramilitary gas-guzzling glory. Oprah does not drive a Hummer. But Arnold Schwarzenegger has been a proud owner. As has Sylvester Stallone. The Hummer appeals to large men of even larger ego, men who aren't worried about their carbon footprint and believe that obstacles in life are meant not just to be surmounted but squashed flat. Every once in while, you see a little guy clambering out of a Hummer, painfully in need of a ladder, and you realize that it can also be viewed as a $57,000 ticket to enlarged self-esteem.

Of course, Hummer never ruled out female ownership. When GM launched the smaller H2 model in 2002, the advertising agency Modernista created a campaign that advised potential female owners to "threaten men in a whole new way." That was clever enough to inspire sales of around 30 percent to women. Still, the majority of Hummer owners remain defiantly male. Even the further-downsized H3, the Hummer with broadest appeal, was briefly marketed as a way to "restore your manhood."

If this all sounds like caricature, that's because it is. The Hummer is a cartoon, more symbol than actual vehicle. Its off-road performance is extraordinary. But it's such a ridiculously over-capable ride that it greatly exceeds the requirements of most customers who aren't considering a run at the Dakar rally. Its sales are pathetic compared with pretty much any normal automobile.

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