LUTZ GIVETH WITH ONE HAND, AND WITH THE OTHER, HE TAKETH AWAY ... THE HUMMER H3T

Oh, that Bob Lutz ... He's just one tough to figure good ol' boy, ain't he? He's jus' gonna be the death of us, don'cha think? Here he was in Los Angeles, seems like just a few weeks ago, and he's there goin' on and on about all sorts of "green" things and one of them trucks he makes is getting 15 miles per gallon or some silly thing and he gets an A-WARD for doin' that! Hell, my lawn tractor and snowblower both do better than that! And he's jawin' away 'bout that new VOLT car that Chevrolet is gonna make ... Then no sooner does he get back to his prime-rib-and-Rob-Roy-with-a-sidecar lunches at the Rattlesnake then sure enough, they ain't makin' that there VOLT thing ... Then they are again! Well, forget 'bout all that green stuff, because looks like GM finally got what we ol' boys and gals really want ... A HUMMER PICKUP! Man, oh man! OOOHWEEE! Y'all just gotta get one of these here trucks ... Hey! Mebbe GM will start running these here H3Ts in that NASCAR truck racin' deal! (Photo above - Bob Lutz captured in his most-favored habitat).

  Yep, it's true: In the spirit of helping the planet, General Motors is not only continuing to make the  Hummer brand, they're expanding it! Hummer is entering the midsize pickup market with the H3T pickup, which General Motors will intro next week at the perpetually-frozen Chicago Auto Show.
   Some years ago, I was a "celebrity", albeit a fairly small one, hired by GM to man their exhibit for way-too-many-hours each day of the Chicago Auto Show, which is actually the most-attended auto show in the US, larger than Detroit's, New York City's and even the annual exhibition in America's car-central, Los Angeles. Why? Because people in Illinois and about eight other surrounding states have absolutely nothing better to do between September and May than drive to Chicago, weather permitting, of course, and take-in the car show. At that show, where I was wined-and-dined in true GM fashion every night (which is first class; this was back when GM had lots of discretionary money) and put up at The Drake Hotel, one of the city's oldest and always one of its best, I learned what real "cold" was; I was raised in NYC and on Long Island, and had walked to school in -9, so figured I knew from cold  ... I was wrong. Walking up Michigan Avenue, towards the lake and the hotel, at 10 or 11pm in the first week of February, now that was cold.
   I actually feared parts of my face would freeze and simply fall off. Going to the car show when day-after-day promised nothing but more dehumanizing, demoralizing cold, would definitely seem like a good idea if I lived in the area.
   This is what those brave Chicago show-goers will see when the H3T debuts in their fair city:
   Based on the architecture of the Hummer H3 (though I wouldn't use the term, "architecture", it might embarrass architects), the smaller of Hummer's two SUVs, H3T is bigger than a midsize pickup, like the Toyota Tacoma, but smaller than a full-size pickup like the Ford F-150 (or Chevy Silverado or GMC Sierra, for that matter).
    H3T has a five-passenger crew cab and a five-foot-long bed. Hummer also makes a larger truck, the H2 SUT, with a six-foot bed. Still, getting that proverbial and used-to-be-standard 5' x 8" sheet of plywood into the H3T's bed is an impossibility; you know this before even trying to do so. Now that people who do not buy pickups for work have ruined the pickup market for those that do, pickups are just now actually beginning to revert to their original purposes: Work trucks for people who actually use them in their work.
   All that softness and friendliness and comfort and fold-down stuff for transporting the soccer team in the bed and overall usefulness --- not for real work, but for the family --- which has been designed-into these trucks are not going to be needed much longer; fuel prices and shortages of same will eventually guarantee that.
    But did that stop GM from trying to milk one more penny from buyers so dazed, confused and bewildered by marketing that they actually still think that any Hummer model is useful and makes sense? No. In fact, it probably encouraged GM more than anything else. If members of the public are scared that the Hummer brand might go away, well, they might even be more likely to buy one right now, to make a true "impulse buy", as if the H3T was a candy bar or tabloid rag in the check-out aisle.
   Hummer says the H3T retains the brand's "signature design and off-road capabilities", with standard four wheel drive, 32-inch tires and optional 33-inch tires and front and rear wheel-locking differentials for increased traction. Just the stuff for the neighborhood carpool.
   There is a standard 3.7-liter, five-cylinder engine with 242 horsepower and an optional 5.7-liter V-8  with 300 horsepower that can tow up to 5,900 pounds. Hmmm ... How many people who buy Hummers actually tow horse trailers?
   The H3T is scheduled to arrive in dealerships in fall, 2008. GM said production will begin in the third quarter at the company's Shreveport, La., assembly plant. No price was given, but the 2008 H3 starts at $30,595.
   GM is fervently hoping that the new pickup helps revive Hummer sales, which sank 22 percent last year as consumers perhaps finally realized how bamboozled they'd been by not only GM, but Ford and Dodge and now even Nissan and Toyota (both of whom, by the way, are having huge sales problems with their made-in America, V8-equipped full-size trucks).