Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Wild Ass Prediction

GM proudly announced today that they had found a secret buyer of the Hummer division. They were so smug and satisfied with themselves at having discharged the company's supposedly worst symbol of excess and selfishness and environmental depredation. Talking all about the future and retooling and moving forward. Oh, GM certainly has been retooled, with chief screw driver being Fritzy Henderson. Word on the street is that some Chicom firm has picked it up. How ironic that Obama would allow GM to sell its most loathed and despised brand to the biggest polluters on the planet.

And who is it exactly that loathes and despises the HUMMER? No vehicle has caused more diarrhea among the environmental wackjob community than the HUMMER. Whereas receiving a hummer in the confines of the sacred Oval of the People is really none of anyone’s business, driving a HUMMER is an international crime against humanity. Receiving a hummer in a HUMMER would constitute a rip in the space time continuum.

Which brings us to today’s wild ass prediction. It is SBD’s fervent belief, founded entirely on his own imagination and highly questionable understanding of the car, truck, light truck, pick-up truck, SUV, smart car business, that the only company with a legitimate claim on the HUMMER assets is none other than Navistar International Corporation. Americans cross paths every day with Navistar products. They make school buses, delivery trucks, moving trucks, rental trucks, and they make diesel engines for trucks, SUVs and pickups. Navistar is a forward looking American company, making a diesel-electric hybrid. Also, Navistar makes the MRAP, the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected big ass MoFo armored fighting vehicle, which is responsible for a drastic decline in roadside bombing fatalities among US service personnel in Iraq.

“Well, that’s a grand guess,” the smug assholes among you might say, “but just what the hell does Navistar have to do with owning big ass, nearly impractical, poseur sport utility vehicles such as the HUMMER?” What claim on the offering of four independently operated wheels for the average American does Navistar have?

Well, Navistar used to be called International Harvester and International Harvester used to make some of the iconic American workhorse wagons. Maker of the Travelall, the Travellete, the Scout, the Scout II, the Dana, the Scout Traveller, and the Terra, IH established a firm foundation for solid, no nonsense, four wheel drive workhorses. Designed to haul stuff from one shitty location to another, they offered no pretension of status other than that you probably worked your ass off for the better part of seven days of a week.



SBD is himself a Jeep man. Former owner of a Wrangler, lost to the chastisement of a new wife, and present owner of a low mileage Cherokee Sport 2 Door, another terribly impractical vehicle (unless one finds himself in snow, mud, sand, slush, a field, a mountain road, a creek, a gigantic potholed strewn stretch of roadway in Washington, D.C.), but a keeper for life, regardless of the wifely sighs. Now, Jeep used to hold a similar status to the IH workhorses, in fact competed with them, as well as mother of SUVs - the group of Chevy trucks generally known as the Suburban. Jeeps status has fallen considerably since Chrysler executives began to ask why urban women weren’t buying Jeeps, which has resulted in an embarrassing stable of pussy mobiles such as the Liberty, the Patriot and the Compass. Shameful vehicles all, most definitely meeting needs of urban women, but that’s not what Jeep is supposed to do. Jeep was not ever supposed to give a rat’s ass about urbanites. It was always a fuck you statement, declaring “I don’t belong here and neither does my owner and we are ready to drive over your ass to get out if we have to.” You couldn’t drive over an ant’s ass in a Compass. And Chrysler has wildly confused an entire generation of men, leading them far down a path of personal embarrassment, as they pimp out their second hands with low profile tires and low boy suspension. And despite a few rough years, only the Wrangler stays true to the Jeep brand. The newly styled Liberty attempts to reclaim the hard work of the Cherokee name plate and the Commander is trying desperately to be a Land Rover, causing the old Grand Wagoneer to roll over in the junk yard. Whatever – the whole Jeep mark will probably be relegated to some kind of car Gitmo, as no Chrysler/Fiat executive will know what judgment to pass on it for fear of being visited by Obama’s civilian patrol in the dead of night.

The HUMMER has a lingering credibility because its grandfather is the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or HMMWV, or Humvee, produced by AM General, which was created the commercial version the Hummer. Sold in 1999 to GM, AM General continued to make the Hummer, or H1, as well as the horrendous and laughable H2, but GM took responsibility for manufacturing the H3 and H3T, which now has a decent reputation overseas. Anyway, there’s enough seriousness and utility to be found in the brand and the trucks.

There is a huge market of four wheel drive enthusiasts in this country and they are certainly sick and tired of being lectured by non-child bearing, Ivy League plastic and glass parsers seeking to martyr you and SBD on America’s highways in clown cars so Gaia can focus on destroying humanity with natural disasters. There’s a backlash coming and the company that can take advantage of it by boldly and proudly selling big ass utility to those who need it and who harbor an inner Galt, ready to drive into the mountains, will be solidly positioned and will be doing God's work.

GM and Chrysler are now owned by a government whose mission is to rob Americans of their pleasures and force them into purchasing goods based on how good they make other people feel about themselves. Navistar makes things people need to work efficiently and to support their livelihood. Owning Hummer would give them an opportunity to lay claim to a heritage of serving the individual with solid, no nonsense engineering and simplicity. Many people may be like SBD, unwilling to ever consider buying any product owned in part by the government. As much as he loves Jeeps, it will be a long time before he considers buying one. Same for GM products. There’s great potential in the HUMMER brand. Great opportunity to allow a fair number of Americans to say fuck you to Obama and his army of fun crushers and scolds. SBD hopes that Navistar climbs that hill.