The Smell of Hummer

By Jim Hightower, AlterNet. Posted October 9, 2004.

The Hummer – it's not just for driving anymore.

Indeed, you can now splash the essence of Hummer all over your body! General Motors, the maker of this massive symbol of automotive macho, has now licensed a new Hummer cologne calling it "The Essence of Adventure," and pricing it as high as $52 for a Hummer-shaped bottle of the stuff. The scent is advertised as being "masculine with rugged and adventurous attributes." They go further, promising that this new fragrance "embodies all that Hummer is."

Hmmm. The Hummer is an absurdly-expensive, gas-guzzling, low-performance, high-polluting, gussied-up chunk of automotive junk. What would that smell like? Besides, these days I see many more women driving these behemoths than men. Forget the masculinity pitch, this thing has turned into a girlie car! I suggest they'd do better with a perfume than a cologne - preferably one with the alluring scent of money.

If it's a real man's car you're after, you want the International CXT pickup truck. Weighing 14,500 pounds, reaching nine feet tall, and stretching 21 and a half feet long, you could put a Hummer in the pickup bed of this honker! In fact, this beast will tow 20 tons and has to have air brakes to make it stop.

Yet, it's got the luxuries you need, too – leather seats, wood grain trim, a drop-down DVD player, and whatnot. Speaking of luxury, it gets only seven miles per gallon, requiring about $130 each time you fill up its 70-gallon diesel tank. Then there's the price tag - up to $115,000 with all the options.

That's pricey, but think of all the Hummer men you can intimidate. That's priceless. As CXT's marketing director says, "This is not a soccer moms's vehicle. I can't see the wife picking up groceries with it."

In a CXT, you can look down on a Hummer and truthfully say, "Mine's bigger than yours."

Jim Hightower is the best-selling author of "Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush," from Viking Press. For more information, visit jimhightower.com.

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