My arguement is that Hummer is to the offroad world what Porsche or Ferrari are to the sports car world: an icon of offroad exotic. There's a degree of performance that must be maintained....or the brand is doomed.
Yeah, it's fine if GM wants to make some watered-down cheapy mall-runner to compete with other SUV's and sell to the masses who would likely give-up their 4-wheeldrive ability if the name Hummer were ablazed in bigger, bolder and chrome letters across every panel of the vehicle....BUT they really need to maintain some flag-ship that can deliver BIG-TIME...and it's my contention that people will pay for it.
And don't get me wrong, there's a special place in my heart for the mighty H1...but it's time to innovate. The military had that thing spec'd as a Highly Mobile Multi-Wheeled Vehicle: it was designed to be an ambulence, machine-gunner, small missle-launcher, personel transport, fuel-truck, water-truck, etc, etc.
For crying out loud: it's a mobile platform intended to adapt for a multitude of purposes. It wasn't really intended to be squirreled around through tight trails and offroaded like a Jeep...when you try to, the breakdown & maintainance factor is off the scale. I dunno, I love the H1 for what it is, but hate it for what it isn't...hard to explain and confusing at best. But make no mistake, one day someone thought it would be cute to outfit a Humvee with an interior, an A/C and a few amenities and see if some milionaires would pop the bucks to cruise in 'em.
Anyways (did I mention that I was known for writing novels?)....it's time to innovate the best of the H1 into something the size of an H3 and make it more fuel efficient.
Btw, Horace...all's I heard in your post was something about a front-locker and winch
But you may have something with those plastic disposable panels!!!