I’ve always been one of those people that think of a car as a means of transportation-this may have something to do with the fact that I have never had the kind of money Jay Leno has to throw around on fancy cars. I am also pretty much completely baffled by those auto auctions where people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for forty year old cars. that have been completely rebuilt and have next to nothing in common with the car that came off the line.
So it makes sense that I would not be too upset about the end of Hummer or Mercury, but I’m not sure anyone else cares either. The death of car brands is pretty common now-Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Geo, and Saturn have also recently faded away. Wikipedia has a very impressive List of defunct United States automobile manufacturers whic
h includes hundreds of models I’ve never heard of. Admittedly the bulk of them seem to be from the heyday of automobile creation around the turn of the 20th century, but it is still fun to think about.
I never cared about Mercury, but I did have my ghetto dreams of owning a Hummer at one time. But really, I always wanted to own a Humvee-which I have just as much of a chance of owning as a Hummer. Hummer was one of those rare items that looked ridiculous with both movie stars and pro athletes using it. The only person I know who actually owns a Hummer is a little old lady who lives on a ranch and bought the Hummer for it’s four wheel drive.
The real legacy of Hummer is the stretch limo and the dreams of conspicuous consumption that they bring to mind. I heard someone say that they thought 4 dollar a gallon gas is what killed the Hummer and maybe it did.
The funky car I do a double take of these days is the Smart Car, which is one step up from a Hoverround-and about as far away from the H2 as possible. I’m not at all sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
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