Mighty yellow Hummer, my dream car

Zatni Arbi, Contributor, Jakarta

Guess which car I would buy if I had a fairly unlimited budget for a new car? Not a BMW X5, not the latest Range Rover, not a brand new Porsche Cayenne. If I had money to burn, I would order myself a Hummer. A bright yellow one, like the one I spotted in Las Vegas a couple of years back.

In case you are curious to know what this car looks like, let me tell you that the Hummer is the so-called "civilian version" of the Humvees that the American troops were using as they went into Iraq just two weeks ago. The original vehicle was first put to task actually 12 years ago during Operation Desert Storm. I hope there is no other connection between the Bushes and the Humvees.

The first Humvee was built by AM General, which won a contract in 1983 to build a High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) for the U.S. Army. The ones for you and me would be made by General Motors. Now in its second generation, the Hummer is more popularly known as the H2.

I would envision that riding in an H2 on the streets of Jakarta would finally free me from the paralyzing worries that have long been torturing me. On the street, my heart always beats faster each time I find myself staring at the green flank of a Mayasari Bhakti city bus just five centimeters from my side window. You know, these huge buses are notorious for their tendency to move to the right or left without warning and for no logical reason except to scare the smaller cars on either side and frighten their occupants. And, if I should once again encounter two Metro Mini buses racing each other toward me on a narrow two-lane street, I know I would be able to calmly tell Pak Hamdani, my driver, to just go ahead and perform a crash test to see whether the Metro Mini is really stronger than my H2.

When it comes to cars, I am not a speed enthusiast. That is why I would choose the H2 and not a Porsche Cayenne Turbo. The H2 can go from zero to 100 kilometers per hour in a little more than 10 seconds, a performance that is just a tad better than my Honda Civic running on Premix.

From its photos, you cannot really tell how tall this vehicle is because of its short windows and windshield and its wide pillars. In reality, it is much taller than the average Indonesian adult. It has a tank look, too, although it is by no means an armored vehicle. By the way, even the combat version Humvees are not all armored vehicles, and that was why it was unable to protect the U.S. Marines riding inside it from a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launched by the Iraqis.

GM's monstrous H2 shared the same platform with its Chevy Tahoe, one of the biggest SUVs in production today. My biggest problem would naturally be finding a parking space for it, for it is more than two meters wide. To make matters worse, it has a 13- meter turning circle, so getting it inside my carport would be an exercise in futility. I guess, if I had this car I would have to sleep in it, as I would have to park it on the main road that is a 10 minute walk from my house.

The second problem will be to pay for the gasoline. This behemoth has a 6 liter, V8 engine -- almost four times the displacement of the engine inside my Honda Civic. If you do not drive around very often in your four-liter Range Rover or Toyota Land Cruiser because it guzzles too much gas, wait until you read this: Motor Trend reports that the mileage is estimated to be a shocking 10 miles per gallon. One trip to Bogor would force me to fast for at least one week. On the flip side, this car -- if we can still call it a car -- has more than enough horsepower to push a renegade KOPAJA out of my way.

The H2 is not a beauty, nor is it a beast. The design -- with flat windows and upright windshield -- is devoid of aerodynamic considerations. The latches that keep the hood in place remind me of my Dad's 1956 Land Rover pickup truck. But, inside, it has more than just padded door trims. The front bucket seats, for example, have more electrical adjustment controls than you would probably care to know about. There are a hands-free cellular phone and a CD changer. Again, if I could choose, I would prefer an H2 with leather seats to match the air springs on the rear axle.

But, ah, this is just a US$200,000 dream for combating the traffic in Jakarta.