No American car nameplate has seen quite as tumultuous a time over the past quarter-century as Hummer. Loved and hated, killed and reborn, fit for the Governator and your local gym owner alike. The fall from “MTV Cribs” cool to locally despised was rather swift, but the vilification simply couldn’t last forever. Now that 2000s nostalgia is coming into its own, the controversial Hummer H2 is starting to be loved again, and GMC just cast a huge vote of confidence.
In case you live in a land where 9,000-pound supertrucks don’t roam the streets, GM revived the Hummer nameplate in 2021 with a new monument to excess. The GMC Hummer EV has a battery pack that weighs nigh-on as much as a Honda Civic, features two sets of T-tops, can crabwalk intentionally, and can sprint from zero-to-60 MPH in three seconds flat despite being the size of a small village. It’s an electric vehicle that doesn’t give two hoots about efficiency or modesty, and its architectural similarities with the Chevrolet Silverado EV draw comparisons with a Hummer from the past.
In December of 1999, GM acquired the Hummer nameplate and quickly realized that exclusively building ex-military vehicles with little service paid to ergonomics would always be a niche field. To cash in on brand equity, there needed to be a Hummer for people whose last name wasn’t Schwarzenegger. By Frankensteining bits of three-quarter-ton and half-ton trucks together underneath a blocky new body, the Hummer H2 was born. It instantly became an icon of the noughties, for better or for worse. EA Games put it in “Need For Speed: Underground 2” because it was outrageous. Environmentally motivated vandals in California set them on fire because they were outrageous. No one was neutral on the Hummer H2, but regardless of your view, when you picture one in your head, it’s likely one specific color: yellow.
Conveniently, the 2027 model year marks 25 years of the H2, so GMC is celebrating with the Hummer EV Icon | 25. Yes, that vertical bar is part of the official model name. It takes the dual-motor 2X and tri-motor 3X trims of the Hummer EV truck and SUV and clothes them in a hue fans have been craving ever since the Hummer comeback was announced. With the silly name of “Icon” (yes, really), it’s a clear throwback to the simply-named Yellow of the H2. And I’ll be damned if it doesn’t look the business.
Doesn’t it just take you back to a time when the H2 was shiny and new? When it graced magazine covers and video game screens and reality TV? When 24-inch wheels were mind-blowing and not just a factory option on an Escalade, and when trunk installs were less about camping gear and more about wicked loud audio equipment. It wasn’t necessarily a better time, but it was a younger time. One during which many of us were still impressionable enough to find the H2 cool.
Of course, should you wish to buy a new Hummer EV in a color other than yellow, you do still get a few benefits. For the 2027 model year, every Hummer EV comes fitted with a Tesla-style NACS port for easy Supercharger access. Four other new color choices join the palette, including broody Dark Ember, Azurite Blue, Dark Ridge, and Deep Void Matte. Capping everything off is a choice of two new 22-inch wheel designs.
While we don’t yet know how many examples of these limited-edition models GMC plans on making or what they’ll cost, spraying the Hummer EV in yellow feels like an important point in the cultural redemption of the Hummer H2. Like reality TV, it’s not the most highbrow thing on the planet, but it still gets the people going.
Top graphic image: GMC
Surprised there’s no mention of the Bad Boys 2 Yellow H2. That was a pretty big Michael Bay movie with some good use of an H2.
To me this monstrosity represents GM wasting money on vanity projects that distract them from what they should be working on. Like fixing the 6.2l disaster.
I see a fair amount of the Hummers around me. They are almost all silver but every once in a while you will see a black or white one. Yellow and the blue they used to have would be nice to see. It seemed like most of the originals were that silver bronze metallic color so I guess it all tracks. If you are spending $100k on a vehicle you will trade in a few years or are just leasing I guess you don’t get color you might get sick of in few years and play it safe. GM should just make it in good colors to force their hands.
Where are these selling? I’ve see maybe like 6.
Around me apparently. I live in a somewhat economically depressed rustbelt city, and I see a fair amount of these. I see more of them than Cybertrucks, Rivians, or it’s Silverado/Sierra EV brothers. Probably see more Lightnings though.
“her yellow SUV is now the enemy…” AGAIN!
Given the number of culturally influential figures in this comments section declaring the new Icon “not cool”, it seems that a counter-culture title might be more appropriate… is the H2 now PUNK ROCK???
Wait, was that a reference to a Hummer?
I’d always assumed it was, given the 2004 album release timing. Also, DT gets a pop culture reference in the comments?!
At the beginning of the music video, one of the band members is playing with an R/C H2 – although, weirdly, not a yellow one. I always pictured an Xterra, but, an H2 works too.
I pictured a Ford Escape
Don’t know. I’ve never seen Bowling for Soup’s video for 1985.
I see a few Hummer EVs here in Denver. They’d definitely be cooler in eye-searing yellow than the black/white I see normally. They might be big and heavy as fuck, but they honestly don’t look that big in traffic, though I find the height:width ratio a bit off.
How many of these is GM actually selling?? I’ll go months at a time without seeing one in my area of MA/RI.
I think the SUV is okay looking, but far too big to be so small inside. IMO it’s just a huge waste of resources.
“Hug waste of resources” is the whole Hummer legacy! It’s tradition!
Yeah, hard pass. Even if you don’t have a small yak, you’re gonna look like you do driving one of these things. (And let’s face it, you buy one of these things, you got a tiny yak.)
I’ve only seen one H1 that was used as intended. It had livery for a fencing company and the wear on it and the equipment carried showed that they used it in the literal field. I doubt anyone would use the EV Hummer in that manner.
Whether it’s using too much gas or too much electricity, it’s still a big pointless vehicle that uses too much fuel.
Our future civilizations will mine these EVs for metal, and the Hummer represents a lot of material.
H2 IS cool and even back in the day was cool. All the haters here make me chuckle. The EV hummer though? Well, if it had a wheelie mode like the prototype, it would also be cool.
people that bought them certainly thought they were cool. And so to them, it was. So that’s something. I don’t think that lasted much beyond the first few years though.
Funnily enough, I think they’ve become cooler as years went on. I didn’t mind them when they were new. But now H2s and H3s have become so rare, that when I see one, I find myself thinking, “Man, those are kinda cool.”
I don’t mind the H3, I think that was much more in line with what the brand was actually about. The H2 was just a parts bin hogpodge banking on an image.
The H3 was also a parts bin hodgepodge. It’s basically a Colorado.
I mean, almost ALL GM products were/are. But the H3 actually seemed to fill a niche
The wind and drivetrain noise down the highway is neat. You can actually feel the air you are pushing. With the inside that’s like a tahoe just somehow smaller. But I guess that whole “03 -08 rich” genre of vehicles is like that in many ways. Best not to experience them just look from afar.
No.
nooooope. The Hummer EV has had its 15 minutes and now its just a sideshow and I agree that the H2 was never cool. it COULD have been, but it wasn’t.
GMC’s New Yellow Hummer Is Proof The Hummer EV Is Finally Just As Lame As The H2
Let’s be honest, the Hummer EV was always as lame as the H2.
There is no reality where the H2 is cool. It’s a vehicle for people who don’t give a shit about anyone or anything around them. It’s a fitting materialistic tie-in to their personality.
I saw a H3 pickup once. Was a nice size, it rated a head turn. But all the other Hummers just seemed big to be big, without any benefit.
Counterpoint: the H2 was never cool, is not cool, and will never be cool. It’s a grotesque monument to form over function conspicuous consumption that’s emblematic of the end times prior to our most recent economic apocalypse. It’s a reskinned Tahoe…
That being said I do think the new Hummer is carrying that legacy on loudly, proudly, and heavily…although as other members of the commentariat are saying I do think it’s playing second fiddle to the Cybertruck as our latest and greatest vehicular monument to end stage capitalism. With that out of the way, I’ll admit that the EV Hummer has a sort of monkey brain appeal and at least it’s unique and highly capable.
There are reasons to be interested in one that go deeper than “I’m immature and want everyone to look at me”, although that remains the most compelling case for buying one….
I totally agree. This was almost marketed for the same segment as the Ram TRX etc. The interesting thing is that I think that the HummV is not even in the position where it has the “look at me” power any longer. The Cybertruck has taken that spot. So in my mind that leaves it in a weird position.
I look at them as they pass, but I notice the Cybertruck more easily.
My eyeballs are assaulted by Cybertrucks every time I have to drive here in DC and I just want them to go away….you may think that it’s due to an excess of chuds being around to work in the current administration, but oddly enough almost all of them are driven by young people of color. It’s…odd but I don’t feel qualified to provide any further insight.
A lot of them here in the South also…now I go ‘how boring’ if they didn’t spring for wrap of some kind.
I think the Cybertruck has really struck a nerve with people who just want something extremely different and outrageous. Is it objectively an example of poor design? Probably! But it looks intimidating and crazy and the SS is reminiscent of that movie where the car time travels and the road catches on fire VROOOOOOM! Probably best not to overthink it… its buyers sure don’t.
Yeah, I don’t remember it being cool, either. Just a Tahoe with fake plastic offroad bits stuck to it.
(Gif of Homer Simpson backing into the bushes.)
Back during the 2008 housing crash, a reporter asked a guy who speculated in buying up houses how he located financially distressed homeowners. His answer: “I follow the Hummers!”
The Cybertruck is the new H2.
These are most definitely not cool again.. lol
H2’s were EVERYWHERE in South Florida. They were the “this is my business tax write-off vehicle” du jour.
Replaced by the CyberTurd, almost all of which are wrapped with an advertisement for a business, at least in SW Florida.
Yep, now it’s any lifted pickup on wide wheels in Stormtrooper white and black colors, possibly wrapped with the logo of the fitness center, vape shop, concealed carry permit training, martial arts training, or tattoo shop that the owner runs
Don’t forget the landscaping/roofing co wraps (but not actually towing the equipment).
I lived in an upscale-ish suburb (in a small started house) when those came out and every middle management douchenozzle suddenly had one. The golf course parking lot was like 50% H2s.
We had a 2002 H2. Husband wanted yellow. I talked him out of it and we chose that metallic sand beige color. I was wrong. He sold it for a Range Rover and looking back, he wishes he would have kept the Hummer. We did need a tow vehicle.
When I think of a Hummer H2, it’s from CSI: Miami so not yellow. The original at least looked good. The modern EV version doesn’t look good from any angle.
I think of that dork from Breaking Bad.
these behemoths make my 69 impala look like a midsize. I know the H3’s were just a colorado with a body kit but i honestly feel like that was the right size for a hummer. build a new h3 on the VSS-T platform give it gas or EV+range extender ala Scout and call it a day.
Any modern full size truck or SUV does that to any full size car from any era, I just got a new RAM 1500 assigned as a company vehicle, and my Challenger looks like a BRZ parked next to it. The pickup just towers over, like little historic church that sold its air rights to the giant new office tower that went up next door and is now in perpetual shadow
My full size from 2003 is literally the same footprint as a midsize pickup from 2026
But for some reason, the midsizes still feel like they have tiny interiors.
I walk by a GMT400 on a regular basis, I always note how A) it’s still such a good looking truck, and B) how tidy the size seems compared to modern trucks, but the interior still looks fairly large.
And the visibility out! Somehow this thing is easier to park than my Mach-E. For the interior thing, and GM to GM, the Canyon is just as wide at the wheels as my Yukon XL, but pinches in like 8 inches at the doors. I guess to keep some distance from the current Yukon/ Sierra.
The H3 was actually kind of cool, from a hardware perspective. It had an available “Adventure” package, which included 4.10 diff gears, 4.1 transfer case low range ratio, and front and rear locking diffs. They also had 285/70/17 (33″) tires from the factory, which was rare at that time. There also an “Alpha” pkg which included the 5.3L V8.
I still think these are one of the best offroad vehicles GM has ever built.
yeah the alpha ones were really the only ones that appealed to me, especially the H3T alpha. i have an 04 gmt355 colorado crewcab z71, the poster truck in the poster color and it always bugged me you could get a manual transmission in the H3 but not the Z71 crew cab colorados lol
I still have multiple models of H2’s from my childhood (from 1:64 all the way to the 1:18’s they sold at Sharper Image), and I’ll be the first to say, NO, this is not proof the H2 is cool again. I don’t think it’s possible to make the H2 cool again. There is no redemption arc, that curve dipped downwards and won’t recover.