The Hummer H1 is back, brand new, and coming straight out of Detroit.
The man responsible for this madness, at least in part, shouldn’t surprise you. It’s Bob Lutz, the 85-year-old industry wizard of Volt and Viper fame, who has struck up yet another business deal for his company, VLF Automotive. You may remember hearing about VLF, which includes designer Henrik Fisker and former Boeing executive Gilbert Villarreal, when it began converting Fisker plug-in hybrids into Corvette ZR1?powered sedans. VLF is building these cars, along with rebodied Viper and Mustang creations, at a small factory in Auburn Hills, Michigan. And now it’s building Hummers?or more precisely, since Hummer is still a General Motors trademark, the Humvee C-Series. Humvee Export, a five-person collaboration of Humvee enthusiasts and entrepreneurs based out of nearby Saint Clair, Michigan, has contracted VLF to assemble the trucks with GM powertrains, president John Costin told Car and Driver. One of those enthusiasts is a Frenchman, Paul Chedid, who runs a Cadillac and Corvette dealership in Paris and was the H1’s distributor in France. While GM dropped the civilian-spec Hummer H1 in 2006 and killed the Hummer brand in 2010, the vehicle’s contract manufacturer, AM General, has continued to build HMMWV (High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle) trucks for U.S. and foreign militaries. In 2013, AM General began offering the C-Series kit to individuals for $60,000, which inc...