Jalopnik: Humvee

Russian "Undesirable" Oleg Deripaska Makes Play For Hummer

Andrew Stoy — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:20:00 EDT

Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, owner of Moscow-based Russian Machines, is in the hunt for the Hummer brand, according to Russian business magazine Vedomosti. Should Deripaska end up the high bidder, GM is going to have to take the paperwork to him: He's been barred by the US State Department from entering the country due to his alleged ties to organized crime and possible false statements made to the FBI, and he's been accused by business associates of extortion, kidnapping, and "unsavory business practices." We know: On the surface, Deripaska sounds like the perfect suitor for Hummer, but some statements made by one of his associates have us a little concerned.

Sergey Babichenko, a representative of Russian Machines' parent company, wrote to ABC News, explaining, "Mr. Deripaska is a respected member of society, a leading Russian businessman, a philanthropist and an outspoken champion on vital global issues of sustainable development and climate change." That last part's what has us worried: We fear that Deripaska may not be aware of the scope of the environmental backlash Hummer has faced in the States. Then again, if Rick Wagoner had just stuffed naysayers into the trunk of a limo and taken them for a "little ride," perhaps Hummer sales wouldn't be down by 60% this year. [ABC News]

Humvee-Based Coggiola T-REX Makes Escalades Tremble

Mark Arnold — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:20:00 EDT

Tired of all those Escalade, Cayenne, and H2 drivers looking down on you from their suburban luxo-ute towers? Well, we've just the vehicle for you to one-up them with. This Hummer H1-based monstrosity is called the Coggiola T-REX. Standing over 7-feet tall and nearly 18-feet long, it is absolutely massive. And what's better, this dinosaur is up for bids! Sure, anyone could just buy a surplus Humvee if size was all that mattered, so what makes the T-REX special? It's all about the fine Italian styling.

Coggiola, a design firm based in Turin, Italy, created the T-REX back in 2000 as a concept vehicle to display at that year's Geneva Motor Show. We're not sure what exactly they were thinking at the time, but the Italians took the chassis of a Hummer H1 and made a completely custom body and interior for it. You would think they would shoot for something dramatically stylish, but the end result looks to us like a bloated Jeep Grand Cherokee that just feasted upon a liberty. Sure, the 6.5-liter turbo-diesel engine and all the tough off-road drivetrain remains, so it does retain some function to its form. Actually, with all that interior room you could probably even live in this thing, so perhaps it's even more purposeful than before. However you feel about the T-REX, the current asking price of about $800,000 is probably enough to keep away all but the most oil-rich buyers.
[eBay Italy via CarScoop]

Ghost-Riding The Whip, Iraq Edition

Ben Wojdyla — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:00:00 EDT

It's got to be tough living in the middle of a war zone, in a strange country, under constant stress. So it's understandable when troops blow off a little steam by being goofy. For example, ghost-riding Humvees and MRAP's. Yep, the craze that started with a yellow short bus and later saw bored suburban kids crashing cars into all manner of whatnot has reached the sands of Iraq. We briefly considered ghost riding the MRAP when we did the ride along, but we decided that climbing up and down the ladder would have overtaxed even our sculpted blogger's physique. [via YouTube, YouTube, YouTube and YouTube]

What's Your All-Time Favorite Military Land Vehicle?

Matt Hardigree — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 11:40:00 EST

The standard-issue olive green 1942 Pontiac Torpedo from this morning's DOTS and the Post-Apocalyptic vehicle poll got us thinking about the vehicles that serve so bravely in war. On one hand there are the classic Jeeps of WWII. Then there is the modern and much safer International Maxxpro. Those are trucks. What about tanks? In Alamein to Zem Zem, the poet Keith Douglas describes his experience in the African desert in an Mk. III Crusader

"To see these tanks crossing country at speed was a thrill which seemed inexhaustible — many times it encouraged us, and we were very proud of our Crusaders; though we often had cause to curse them."

Where do you fall in?A Tank? An Amphibious Vehicle? An Armet Gurkha? We're partial to the DUKW ourselves. What's your all-time favorite military land vehicle?

The Indian Humvee: Mahindra Axe

Ben Wojdyla — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:15:00 EST

For a long time, the Indian Self Defense Forces have been running around in WW2 era Jeeps made with surplus or auctioned off tooling. The pressure to keep up with the Joneses has the military in the final approval stages for a new vehicle called the Mahindra Axe. The rugged compact military transit is powered by two different engine options - a 2.7L diesel from Ssangyong, and a 4.2L unit you may have seen under the hood of your local Chevy Trailblazer. Rumor has it they're developing a home grown engine option as well as a civilian version. Maybe that name is having an effect on us, but we wonder we can get ours with the Gulf Oil Livery.

AM General's new HumVee gets itself snapped ...

Ray Wert — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:15:00 EDT

AM General's new HumVee gets itself snapped by car spy photogs. Don't they know loose lips sink Hummers? [Autoblog]

Bumping Through Baghdad

Davey G. Johnson — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 23:15:00 EDT

Driving an American military vehicle in Baghdad is somewhat of a dodgy career choice these days for reasons that we're pretty sure we need not go into. It is, however, interesting the driving tactics the soldiers have devised to get from one place to another in the beleagured city. Soundtrack is NSFW, but it does add somewhat of a mesmerizing rhythm to the action. [Thanks to Tiffany for the tip.]

Rambo's Lambo: The Lamborghini LM002

Jonny Lieberman — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 12:00:00 EDT

We've got enough hopped-up supercars and luxury coupes in the Fantasy Garage, yeah? There's the Veyron, the world's fastest production car in a straight line and the Group B Audi quattro S1, one of the world's fastest around a gravel corner. You can't get more sinister than the Daimler Drophead Coupe and Buick GNX, but you can get more überholprestige (that's German for, "I see the car behind me. I must get out of its way.") Lamborghini's LM002, of course, is überholprestige. Once in Newport Beach I saw such a "Rambo Lambo" looming large in my mirrors. I quickly pulled off the road and began praying it wouldn't hurt me. And I'm an atheist.

During the past few years (and even still today), nearly every carmaker was jumping over itself to bring a full-sized SUV to market. Hell, there's talk even Bentley is considering it. But back in 1986, the odds of a supercar builder such as Lamborghini producing an SUV were as likely as Martha Stewart branding a line of assault rifles. They had a good reason to do so: profits. During the late 1970s, Uncle Sam was looking for the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle we'd later know as a HMMWV, or Humvee. And just as the New York Dolls' David Johansen morphed into Buster Poindexter, Lamborghini took a stab at building an all-rounder for the American Army. Why not?

The Rear-Engined 1970 FMC' XR 311 Concept

The 1977 Rear-Engined Lamborghini Cheetah Prototype

In 1977, Lamborghini fashioned the Cheetah prototype. Talk about a bastard; the Cheetah was built by US-based defense contractor Mobility Technology International. Turns out MTI lifted the design from FMC's 1970 concept, the XR 311. FMC eventually sued both Lambo and MTI, but the odd couple pressed on. The fiberglass Cheetah was built in San Jose and transported to Italy so Lamborghini could work its hocus pocus in the form of a 5.9-liter Chrysler V8 in the rear, hooked to a three-speed TorqueFlite transmission. Hardly the stuff of fantasy, these off-the-shelf Mopar bits.

The weird off-road dynamics of the Cheetah's rear-engine setup led the US military not only to pass on the Cheetah, but also to crash and destroy the only prototype. For you Area 51 types, the US Army never returned the Cheetah's remains to Lamborghini or MTI. (Mulder, are you there?) Subsequently, the US military signed a contract with AM General to produce the Humvee in June of 1981. Though, it seems obvious to those of us with eyes, the Cheetah's styling inevitably influenced the Humvee.

Undeterred, Lamborghini pressed on with its proto-SUV. The product finally saw the light of day in 1986. Gone was the peculiar rear-engined chassis and Mopar power. In was a proper (for off-road purposes) front-engine set up and a V12 lifted from the Countach. We could pretty much end this writeup with that last sentence. Does your SUV have a 48-valve DOHC V12 from the world's most lusted-after supercar of the 1980s? Didn't think so. Pressing on, Lamborghini draped the interior in sumptuous Italian cow hide, rich carpets, power everything and AC. Outside of a Range Rover, these accouterments were unheard of in an off-roader. The LM002 even had a premium Alpine cassette deck mounted in the roof. And that was just the civilian version.

While the US military decided not to play bocce ball, despotic armies all around the Mediterranean were enthralled by Lamborghini's four-kinds-of-butch 4x4. The Saudis ordered 40 of 'em, while Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi went for 100. Idi Amin was probably kicking himself for getting deposed in 1979. You know he would have amassed a fleet of thousands. The military versions all came with a trap-door roof hatch above the rear seats, so passengers could point their AK-47s in whichever direction their hearts desired, plus machine gun mounts on the back. Actually, the Saudi version came with machine guns.

I remember in January of 1988 when the old man took me to the LA Auto Show. In the building that housed the "other" manufacturers, there was a pearl white LM002, parked right next to a now-forgotten Vector. I'm sure I saw all forms of hot Mustangs, Corvettes, Porsches and Ferraris, but I don't remember a single one of them (though I do remember a Peugeot 405 Wagon...). That LM002, however, was burned into my memory banks. It was as if I'd stumbled into a superhero's garage. It was a car Wolverine would drive. And unlike the Vector W8, the LM002 could actually move. Later that year, when a drug dealer on Miami Vice was tormenting Crocket and Tubbs in an LM002, my feelings were confirmed.

Finally, before you vote, just look at it. Note the sinfully wide custom-made run-flat Pirelli Scorpions. Check out the beefy power bulges on the hood, due to the huge air cleaner mounted above the six Weber carbs. How can you not love the combination of skid plate and tubular bumpers/radiator guard? While 455 horsepower was an SUV record until Porsche's Cayenne Turbo S came along 20 years later (and as impressive as that is), we suggest you vote the LM002 because it still looks so brutally fantastic. Sure, SUV's are half-a-dime a dozen these days, and have been totally co-opted by the soccer marm, "think of the children!" crowd. But back in this Lamborghini's heyday, nothing else on earth was as flat-out awesome. To this day, we can't think of another vehicle with as much raw überholprestige. Talking with Mr. Davey G Johnson about this week's Fantasy Garager, he explained, "The LM002 may very well be the coolest car of the 80s." Meaning this Lamborghini is cooler than the Countach and the GNX. We can't hardly argue. And we got little else to say.

LM002 Bonus Points:

A hooned out, 600 hp, full roll cage and plexiglass windowed version was constructed for Paris-Dakar but never entered. That vehicle did race in the Egyptian Rallye des Pharaons a couple of times.
Between 1986 and 1993 total production is thought to have been just 328 vehicles. For comparison's sake, Jaguar made 281 XJ220s while Ferrari produced 1,315 F40s.
In 2004, the US Army "accidently" blew up Uday Hussein's LM002. Is that an "oops," a "D'oh!" or just a fat old, "we suck at life?"
A single Estate (station wagon) bodied version exists. Rad.
[Update] Hunter S. Thompson had one. Game over.

[The Jalopnik Fantasy Garage appears every Tuesday. Readers vote the cars in or out. The idea is that we'll have 50 cars in our Fantasy Garage, the world's greatest mechanic and endless wads of cash. Would you like to nominate a car for the Fantasy Garage? Write tips@jalopnik.com with the subject line "Fantasy."]

DaimlerChrysler Pulls Out of Iran, Emboldens Enemies

Ray Wert — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 08:31:00 EST

German magazine WirtschaftsWoche, whose name is neither more nor less ridiculous than any other German magazine we quote, is reporting that DaimlerChrysler is abandoning its majority stake in Setareh, the exclusive distributor of Mercedes-Benz products in Iran. The magazine sites a source who says increased pressure from the US on companies doing business in Iran is the main reason for the move. The DCX pullout contrasts sharply with a business-exchange plan proposed by the Bush Administration to flood the country with Humvees. – Matt Hardigree

DaimlerChrysler to exit Iran [CNNMoney.com]

Related:
The Jalopnik Morning Shift [internal]

When A HummVee Just Won't Cut It: The Armet Gurkha

Ray Wert — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 17:51:23 EDT

Sometimes in Iraq, or hell — sometimes in Queens — even an up-armored HumVee just won't cut it. That's when you need the Gurkha by the armor-freaks at Armet Armored Vehicles, Inc. out of Toronto, ON. The squat and hedgehog-lookin' 19,000 lb beast-of-an-armored-vehicle ain't just built to shrug off a roadside bomb with its high strength ballistic aluminum armor, or stop a bullet from an AK-47 with its ballistic glass. No, it's also pretty fast for its size — with a top speed of 93 mph. Also, considering the cost is only $200,000 — we're kind of wondering why the US Army doesn't ditch the $300,000+ HumVee for these bad boys. One more pic after the jump. [Hat tip to Amanda!]

Armet Armored Vehicles

Exclusive Transformers Movie Pictures: Teletran-1 Needs To Explore For Ratchet, Bumblebee And Brawl!

Ray Wert — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 15:02:18 EDT

The way the story of the Generation 1 Transformers goes — way back in episode numero uno — the Autobots went-a-searchin' for some energy ito beat the evil Decepticons. After the Autobot's ship, the Ark, was attacked by the Decepticons — it crash landed on Earth where it was buried under a dormant volcano for a few million years until it went active — waking Teletran-1, the Ark's explorin' and repairin' computer system. Teletran-1 got the lay of the land and brought back schematics to bring back to life the earth-bound bots, with the disguise of present-day vehicles and stuff. So we're starting to get the idea that maybe that's the direction Bay's going for the live-action movie. These set pictures are the reason why — we've got ourselves an old-school Chevy Camaro above that'd be a perfect template for the new hotness GM Camaro concept that becomes Bumblebee, and then a click through the jump'll show you a Red Cross Humvee that'd be perfect for Ratchet and a tank that'd make a perfect Decpeticon Brawl.

The Up-Armored Humvee: Putting On The Pounds, Rolling Over Like The Fatties They Are

Ray Wert — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 08:43:03 EDT

A recent study on the military's up-armoring program for the Humvee — where thousands of pounds of armor are added on to the sides and top of the already high-center-of-gravity military beast of personel-carrying burden — may be causing more deaths than their non-up-armored brothers. The study found that 70% of the traffic-related deaths occuring in the US Army standard-bearer and GM money-maker came from rollovers rather than attack from enemy combatants, insurgents, improvised explosive device or the always-deadly beast guarding the cave with long ears and big pointy teeth. But the up-armoring process did result in some positive additions to the Humvee — better safety belts, a fire suppression system and the always popular OnStar system. "What's the shortest route to Fallujah?" (hat tip to weatherman on the correction!)

Report: Armor causing Humvees to roll [CNN]

Related:
At Ease, Soldier: Humvee Sofa [internal]

At Ease, Soldier: Humvee Sofa

Mike Spinelli — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 11:30:08 EST

There's nothing like the smell of novelty furniture in the morning. We'd imagine this piece would go well with any decor that makes liberal use of olive-drab camouflage and government-issue housewares, like a kid's bedroom, the common area at an Idaho militia training camp or the waiting room outside Dr. Killdeer's office (apologies to Richard Chamberlin). It would also make a great conversation starter, or ender as the case may be.

Hummer Humvee Sofa [Winelady.com]