The LA Auto Show, which opens soon, will include a Design Challenge for 'environmentally responsible vehicles'. One of the starring entries will be a Hummer from the studios of General Motors.
We'll just run that by you again.
You know the Hummer: that's the urban version of the armoured US Army troop carrier, first popularised by Arnold Schwarzenegger before he became a tree-hugging governor and was still a founder member of the 'take your planet and screw it up your ass' contingent. The 8mpg Hummer is the vehicle of choice for the crack dealer who needs to carry a small personal army at all times. It radiates personal, social and interstellar hostility from every rivet. It tramples victims and jeers at their softness. It is Mike Tyson on wheels.
Thus the idea of an eco-friendly Hummer is a contradiction in terms that is about as easy to comprehend
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Polluters beware:
neil lyndon tries to comprehend the eco-friendly Humvee |
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as a people-loving anthrax bomb. Nonetheless, the GM Hummer 02 will take its place at the Los Angeles show alongside such works of eco-angst as Mercedes-Benz's RECY (a 100 per cent recyclable two-seater powered by bio-diesel) and Toyota's RLV (a two-seat tandem vehicle that can be pedalled or driven on an electric motor).
Powered by a fuel cell, the Hummer 02 'breathes' through a phototropic body shell which itself produces pure oxygen (its body panels all draw energy from sunlight and are filled with algae which transmute CO2 into oxygen). In other words, says GM, 'it's a Hummer that produces an environmental net gain'. Expressions such as, 'Now we've seen everything,' seem fitting at this juncture.
GM will never actually make the 02, of course. You can't mount a machine-gun on the bonnet. 
FIRST POSTED NOVEMBER 14, 2006
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