Hummer owners, battered by gas price and critics, refuse to surrender their behemoths.
They rumble in on treads called Super Swampers, wearing their hearts on their license plates.
"PLAYDRTY," declares one behemoth from New York. "HUM THIS," dares another, from Ohio.
One Shell station, with an obvious unlimited supply of diesel fuel, has a sign that reads: Hummers Welcome. A smaller sign says: Diesel, $4.97 9/10 a gallon.
There are still Hummer enthusiasts even though sales have dropped 40% this year. They love their behemoths in spite of the soaring price of diesel fuel and the environmentalists who've always hated Hummer owners.
There's no apologizing or self-pity in the ranks of Hummer die-hards. They're here to goad machines that can top 5 tons over boulders the size of Smart cars, through stewpots of mud obscuring who-knows-what and across obstacle courses of stumps, logs and stones — it's "like riding a slow-motion rollercoaster," one says.
It takes a certain kind of person to love a Hummer.
Its hulking body — more than 7 feet wide without mirrors — sat way up off the ground while simultaneously hunkered down in a low crouch, like an overgrown teenager trying to slip into a movie at kid's admission. Its wheels were pushed out past its corners and its drivetrain was yanked up into the middle of the interior, putting a huge hump between driver and passenger.
"It has no aesthetics," AM General spokesman Craig Mac Nab says. "It screams at you from across the street: I look this way because I need to."
A picture of my cave
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