First Drive Review
The Thirty Years' War (1618-48) started with an incident called the Second Defenestration of Prague (a similar stunt had been pulled in 1419). In Bohemia, the nobility revolted against the Hapsburg emperor Matthias, and at HradcSany Castle in Prague in May 1618, Bohemian nobles threw two Imperial representatives right out the window.
And now, Hummer has thrown its world-renowned two-box shape right out the window and brought us the first H2 pickup, called the Sport Utility Truck, or SUT.
Think all this "throwing out" is just coincidence? Ha!
By now, the size and shape and look of the Hummer H2 sport-ute are as familiar as your favorite shoes. It has a huge chrome grille, square corners, flat glass, a big V-8, and as of this writing, some 60,000 happy owners.
But the Hummer Division, like every other cadre within GM, must continue to evolve and add new products, so this time around, there's a new reason for the curious to visit a Hummer showroom: the SUT, in base, Adventure, and Luxury iterations.
There is little mechanical difference between the original Hummer H2 SUV and the pickup version. They're both equipped with the gutsy 325-hp, 6.0-liter GM small-block V-8 engine putting out 365 pound-feet of torque, the 4L65-E hefty-duty four-speed automatic transmission, anti-lock brakes, a multiplex drive system with two different traction-control strategies, a zoomy dashboard, and big seats.
But when your eye scans the body-side stamping just aft of the rear doors, that's where the two diverge. The original H2 has a covered rear cargo compartment that is eroded considerably by the presence of a huge spare tire mounted indoors on the left-hand side of the cargo hold. This new SUT version also has covered and locked storage but adds an abbreviated pickup bed with a locking tailgate and a swing-away outside spare-tire mount finishing it off, not to mention an extra set of taillights in the lower bumper to meet federal law.
Then it gets interesting. There isn't enough room in this rugged pickup truck's bed for a dirt bike, a personal watercraft, a mountain bike, or a snowmobile-all things you might want to haul into some craggy interior portion of Our Great Nation. Not one of these will fit into the bed with the tailgate in the up position. And you can't put the tailgate down to add a tailgate extender without having the spare tire swinging around in traffic. So, you have to carry only what fits in the bed and stops at the tailgate.
But wait! The SUT saves the day with a Midgate such as you'll find in the Chevrolet Avalanche and Cadillac Escalade EXT. The rear window powers down into the Midgate if you want to defenestrate something from the cab into the bed, or the Midgate and the rear seat can then be folded forward, creating a flat floor and a four-by-six-foot pickup bed that's half-covered and half-open (not recommended for winter use). Midgate up, the interior of the SUT packs 31 cubic feet of cargo with the 60/40 rear seats folded down.
The bed has built-in cargo tie-downs and drain holes so you can hose it out, and the options list has a removable locking cargo box on the right side of the bed, a 110-volt outlet, and a hard tonneau cover for cargo security. Another cute touch is the express-all-down feature that lowers all four side windows and the Midgate window in one go.
Tan leather seats are standard, regardless of exterior color, with optional black leather. There are eight-way-adjustable driver and front-passenger seats, four-way lumbar adjustment, seat-position memory, and three heat settings for cushions and seatbacks. Heated rear seats are standard. More? Sure. Navigation on a 5.8-inch display screen, and for the first time in a Hummer, XM satellite radio is on the options list.
Bed and Midgate novelties aside, the H2 SUT has exactly the same plush highway ride, amazing mountain-climbing skills, roomy interior, and dreadful fuel economy as the H2 SUV, for about a thousand dollars more, $52,845 including a sunroof and new spare-tire carrier.
