Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Big Wheels: Owners of Hummer H2s and other SUVs flaunt their audacity

"I've always been a statement guy," Wayne Allyn Root says.

And his statement is big, black and cost nearly $60,000.

Rumbling through city traffic, Root host of "Wayne Allyn Root's WinningEDGE," seen locally at 8:30 a.m. Saturdays on Fox Sports Net (Cox cable channel 49) gets considerable attention in his 8-month-old, polished Hummer H2.

Admirers stopping dead in their tracks to point and wave at his car are not unusual. It's considerably more attention than he got with his previous vehicles: a Mercedes 500 SL convertible and a convertible Jaguar.

"It makes a much bigger statement than a sports car," he said. "To me it's not an SUV it's the SUV. No other SUV could possibly make a better statement than a Hummer."

But what sort of statement is Root seeking?

In a society of "bigger is better," the Hummer and other luxury sport utility vehicles are clearly the elephants of the road.

They're also pigs when it comes to gas.

The larger SUVs may get from 13 to 14 miles a gallon in the city, and the Hummer even less around 10 miles a gallon.

"Sometimes I think it's 10 gallons to the mile," Root joked.

Regardless, the appalling fuel efficiency isn't hurting sales.

According to industry estimates, one of every four new vehicles sold in the U.S. is an SUV, making them the most popular vehicle in the nation. And the H2 ranks as the best-selling large luxury SUV in the country.

The Hummer limousine, for example, is the most popular rental for Ethaan Schultz, manager of Las Vegas-based Exotic Transportation.

"The vehicle carries more people and they're a lot more fun," he said. "There are disco lights inside, smoke machines, stereos and you can carry up to 20 people in them.

"It's the nice fancy limo in town."

Which is all part of the vehicle's appeal, he said.

"It's the new thing in town and people always want the the bigger, best and newest."

Hummer time

The Hummer began as an off-road military vehicle used in Operation Desert Storm. Later it was used on U.S. roads by celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, who now owns a fleet.

In 1999 General Motors purchased the Hummer name from AM General. GM began marketing the vehicle as a "real" SUV, able to go further, carry more and do more off-road than other SUVs. Combined with that savvy marketing plan, along with its sudden appeal to celebrities and sports stars, H2 has become the status symbol.

While the Hummer is attached to the glitterati, Root compares his H2 to his German shepherd.

"I've had dogs my whole life, but I've never had a dog this loving, this beautiful and this vicious. It's an incredible companion, a best friend and a family protector," he said. "To me my H2 is like the German shepherd. It's the perfect combination of beauty and elegance and power and security."

But why drive a vehicle that is 6,500 pounds -- two to three times the weight of most cars?

Root said it simply comes down to safety.

"I can't think of anything I need more than security for my wife and kids, so it's about that need to some extent," he said. "I know the environmental argument, but ... I love my daughter and son, and their being safe so far outruns gas mileage; it's not even close."

In fact, his family is safer in a Hummer or other large SUVs than in most cars -- at least, when it comes to either head-on or side multivehicle collisions.

It's the passengers in the smaller car who have to worry.

Shashi Nambisan, professor of civil engineering at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who also serves as director of the school's transportation research center, said the outcome of multivehicle car wrecks comes down to the law of physics.

"If you are in a crash and if you are in a larger vehicle, you are likely to sustain less injuries, if any injuries at all," Nambisan said. "If a larger and a smaller vehicle collide, the smaller vehicle is likely to sustain more damage."

But Robert Parker, full professor of sociology at UNLV, doesn't buy the "safety" argument.

"I think it's mainly about status," Parker said. "It's about exuding a sense of power over people, a status differential. 'I'm more powerful than you are, I'm more wealthy than you are, I can afford to drive it and you can't.' "

He said in a city such as Las Vegas, where appearance matters, driving a can't-help-but-be-noticed Hummer or SUV is an important status symbol.

"Want to get a job, want to have a relationship -- there's so much of an emphasis on how you look," Parker said. "To me it's shallow, superficial and self-absorbed."

And it isn't fulfilling.

"Look at the data about buying and consuming," he said. "We've never been at a higher peak of material consumption. But in 1957 a survey of happiness with how satisfied you were was at its peak. In the last 40 years of so, the index of happiness is going down. It's never been lower than now and never been higher than '57, when people had far, far less.

"It's not fulfilling to have these SUVs. They're like a Christmas toy. You open it up and you have a great time with it for three days and then you move on. My impression is that they don't provide any long-lasting quality of life. They're a temporary, transient toy."

Then there's compensation. A commonly held belief is the larger the car, the smaller the ...

"When people are acting in one dimension, it's usually to make up for something else," Parker said.

Fred Preston, also a professor of sociology at UNLV, said it's compensation of a different sort.

"It's compensation for living a restrained, urban life. It's a belief in freedom. And the more urban we become, the more we need this fantasy of this freedom," Preston said. "Look at the SUV ads. The vehicles are hardly ever on a highway. They're parked at a lake while the owners go fishing ... they're driving through the woods, the mountains, the frozen tundras.

"The fact is, if you buy that (SUV or Hummer), that's open to you -- even if the chance of you ever doing that is extraordinarily remote."

Off-road

Lisa Farmer and her husband, Jim, bought their Hummer in '93 for one reason: to go off-road.

The couple even formed a Las Vegas Hummer group, Hummoff -- www.hummoff.org -- to allow owners to challenge one another on roads, paths and other terrain outside city limits.

Though their Hummer is more military than luxury, with manual everything and vinyl seats, it serves its purpose.

"The purpose is using it as an off-road vehicle," she said. "It's very heavy and the tires, when you drive on pavement, are chewed up much faster than on dirt."

While the Farmers bought their Hummer for the express purpose of tackling the wilderness, Root acknowledges his is mainly for city driving, and that he doesn't really need a Hummer.

"But does anyone really need anything? It's all about capitalism and people enjoying the nicer and finer things in life," he said. "The whole definition of capitalism is people buying things they want, not what they need. That's what makes this country great.

"We're a people who have wanted something bigger and better every year since the founding of our country. That's what America is all about and always has been."

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