While he sometimes drives it to his Reisterstown office, where he is a now-struggling mortgage broker, usually it sits in the garage of his Westminster home. "It's fun to drive; the kids love it. But at 11 miles to a gallon, who the hell wants to drive that thing around?"
A minute later he finally found the words he was looking for: "It's an expensive hog."
But one thing he does not fret over is the environmental impact. He says he's conservation-minded but is "no tree hugger." So when people give him and his Hummer dirty looks, "I give them the finger. I don't really worry about it. It ain't no different than a dump truck, work truck or anything else."
In Perry Hall, Paul Jett was reluctant to part with his Nigeria-bound H2, which he bought used in 2005 for $40,000. A luxury edition, it has "leather, power everything" and DVD player/TV sets in the headrests. A year ago he spent $5,000 on black rims to match the truck's exterior. It's got chrome door handles, front brush guard and side mirrors.
Jett bought the H2 because of its muscle, plain and simple. "It's a typical male-dominant vehicle. I liked how big they were. I liked the style of them." He also liked people's reactions. Instead of sneers, he got what he took to be admiring stares, perhaps even a smidgen of envy.
Since he normally drives his plumbing van during the day, the rising gas prices did not especially bother him. (He averaged a mere 8 mpg.) And the pollution it generated? "It never even crossed my mind, the environmental side of it. I'm the kind of guy who likes my nice stuff."
As a replacement, Jett considered buying a hybrid version of another gargantuan SUV, GMC's Yukon. But it would have cost thousands more than the $56,000 regular model, so he went with that instead.
And, hey, he says, at 13 mpg it's at least greener than his old Hummer.
Jett's experience makes Eric Schiff envious. The Internet sales manager at Majestic Motor Cars in Glen Burnie has been trying to unload two Hummers for weeks. The only recent nibble has been from a man in France, not a country normally associated with sun-blotting SUVs.
Schiff says he has lowered the price as far as he can without taking a bath. Seriously. But he isn't optimistic about finding any takers. "No normal person," he said, "is going to want to buy a Hummer now in Baltimore, Maryland."
scott.calvert@baltsun.com
