Fail of the century #21: Hummer H2

If you’re gonna do something, do it with conviction. While the original Hummer H1 – the civilian version of the Gulf War-era military Humvee – was a vulgar, tasteless abomination, at least it went all-in on its vulgarity. Park an H1 on your driveway – or, rather, on your driveway plus a very large chunk of your front lawn – and you genuinely looked like you might be off to annexe Panama for a weekend.

But the Hummer H2 – which arrived a decade after the original H1 with a 6.0-litre V8 yet, somehow, a 0–60mph time of over 10 seconds – fell horribly between two stalls. A 4x4 for the vigilante who was originally bang-up for invading Panama, but, having looked into it in detail, had discovered there was a surprising amount of paperwork involved in the whole coup staging thing and was getting a bit lukewarm.

Take those lumpen wheel caps. On the H1, they covered a military spec onboard tyre inflation system beneath. The H2 had no such system. So the caps served no function, save to look daft.

Same story with the bonnet handles. The H1’s handles were hard-mounted to its chassis, and allowed it to be airlifted beneath a Chinook. On the H2, they weren’t attached to anything. Attempt to dangle an H2 from its bonnet hoops, it would simply have plummeted to the ground below. Which, on balance, might have been the best thing for it. Go big or go home.