Breva's country cousin

[belfastguzzi]

Ok it's not MG or a bike,

but it sure looks like the Breva's big fat country cousin.

 

Someone (in North America with far too much – Rob?) posted pictures of their yellow Hummer in the snow. I saw this one in the flesh today.

It couldn't do the nadgery stuff that the Land Rovers did, but still, it was impressive how six litres and xxx horsepower controlled by a bundle of electronics and compressed air powered the thing along.

 

[Guest Nogbad]

 

Nuff said.

[helicopterjim R.I.P.]

That's not really a Hummer. That's a dressed up Chevy Yukon. They call it the H3.

[slug]

Funny (and sad) thing is, 99.99% of these things will never go off a paved road. Still, they're really practical for driving three blocks to the store to pick up some chips and beer...

[robbiekb]

actually Jim beg to differ thats actually a h2 SUT which does have fairly good offroad capabilities. I know because i offroad mine all the time, well used to while living east of Seattle. The H3 i have no experience of, but seeing them on the road they kinda look like a trailblazer with plastic sidepanels??

 

The idiot in this pics, hasn't even bothered to take the siderails off. He has the "lux" rails that are kinda cosmetic, mine are the offroad plates that detach with two bolts to give the correct amount of ground clearance. otherwise you run the risk of tearing the damn things off.

 

I bought mine because the H1's are notororiously unreliable (they've since fixed that problem alledgedly with the H1 Alpha with the duramax motor) and It's impossible to buy a TDI D90 here due to import restricitions, so you end up spending serious coin if you want to go the landrover route.

 

I used to live 4 miles up an old logging road and frequently in the winter i'd be hopping 30-40 Evergreens down on the road if i wanted to get to work at times when if i stopped to saw em , i'd have been there all day, so its been a good truck for me..

 

now that i live in santa monica however, it's a different story **laughs**

[helicopterjim R.I.P.]

Ooops! Sorry mate! But it is still a Chevy. Wasn't knocking what it was but I have a hard time comparing any of them to an H1. The H1 is a purposebuilt offroad vehicle and the H2 and H3 are similar bodies on pickup truck chassis'.

 

By the by, my pickup does very well offroad too but no way can I crawl over rocks and such as an H1 does.

[Steve G.]

I get to work on these things. They're a @$box. @#*%box Chevy pickup.

Ciao, Steve G.

[dlaing]

i'd be hopping 30-40 Evergreens

60653[/snapback]

 

How do you hop an evergreen?

Do you grab on the rails and bunny hop, like a skateboard?

I can see you going over the fallen tree tops, but even that seems like it is pushing it, and your under carriage would be seriously battered.

Got pics of you hopping trees?

[robbiekb]

sigh,, yeah but a chevvy pickup is a piece of shit in the snow unless you go the sandbags route, even then you need to get it lifted which depending on your dealer can have warranty implicitons. My truck came with 34 1/2 " tires, the weight dispersion is great for snow etc.I gave up on pickups as my dedicated snowbaording rig after spinning my fair share of em coming down from various different ski areas (typically 200 days snowboarding a year).

 

Prior to the H2, my list of broken "trucks" was kinda long and tragic, it seems to have held up pretty well, although some of the "cutsomer comfort" crap they put on their malfunctioned and was repaired under warranty, Why can't you buy a vehicle with manual everything so that you can replace it when it inevitably breaks ? ***laughs***

 

I really wanted a H1 and actually for a while there, the H1's were considerably cheaper, but for what i use it for, I'd be going through wheel bearings like naeone's business.

 

...now on the other hand if i still lived up in seattle, I'd definitely be buying myself a H1 Alpha. I think of my H2 as a stylised lifted escalade with better weight distribution for driving in the kinds of road conditions that i see most of the time so theres definitely no delusion of thinking that it was purpose built for any kidn of serious offroading.

 

All in all its been a good truck, not as bad on gas as people make out (all my lifted trucks have gotten crappy gas mileage) reasonably reliable and comfortable for long roadtrips. oh yeah and there was the time that the lesbian coke addict t-boned my fiance at an intersection in vancouver , so destroying her own vehicle, but mine was ok to finish our vacation, so i'll not knock it as long as it gets me home in one piece!

 

This does remind me of one time back in the late 90's on microsoft campus when i saw a couple of programmers get their new H1 stuck behind the redwest campus parking, wedged between some trees.... the Hummers are just too wide for that kind of thang

[robbiekb]

How do you hop an evergreen?

Do you grab on the rails and bunny hop, like a skateboard?

I can see you going over the fallen tree tops, but even that seems like it is pushing it, and your under carriage would be seriously battered.

Got pics of you hopping trees?

60669[/snapback]

 

 

remember those crazy ice storms we had in the nwest about 2 years aback that brought all the trees down ? When i jacked up the suspension i'd be able to get over em with just enough ground clearance to just scrape up the skid plate and not much more. Total pain in the ass and nope i dinnae have any pictures seeing as i was 1)pissed at being late for work, 2)having no hot water, 3) having a tree fall on my garage, smash the garage roof in and land on my V11 3)having no water to flush toilets 4) listening to my fiance complain because her rear wheel drive m roadster had just been banjaxxed by a tree and was imovable due to the snow..

 

but yeah i certainly wouldnt want to buy my truck once i'm done with it, its had a reasonably tough life to date.

 

i do have pictures chopping trees at the weekend with the trusty chain saw however ...some of those evergreens up in the seattle area get pretty darn big (says the scotsman from the country with bugger all trees)

[Martin Barrett]

How do you hop an evergreen?

Do you grab on the rails and bunny hop, like a skateboard?

I can see you going over the fallen tree tops, but even that seems like it is pushing it, and your under carriage would be seriously battered.

Got pics of you hopping trees?

60669[/snapback]

 

Now I can answer this as I have some experience. When I completed my RAF Officer training I held (waiting specialist secondary training) at Cranwell helping out on the officer training (instant expert) mainly driving the safety vehicles.

 

I was confronted one day by a fallen pine tree, about 12-18" diameter fallen across the trail. Tackled it the same way I used to on my trials bike.

 

Drive up to it. Ease off to get the weight transference forward compress the front suspension, big heap of throttle. Front comes up and over, ease off and momentum and weight transference carries the back over. Piece of piss.

 

The next day confronted by a large trunk about 18-24". Full of confidence I can do excess of 3' on the trials bike. The problem is cant get at this one square on.

Same methodology. Front comes up nicely get wheels on top and then it goes all horribly wrong the right goes over whilst the left doesn't and drops back. Falls on to the steering tie rod arm thingy (technical term) bending it. Couldn't go forward or back. In the end had to get it jacked up and pulled back by a load of officer cadets.

I drove it back to the depot. Tyres squealing very difficult to go left and shot around right handers rather akin to a Sopwith Camel (torque reaction from large rotary engine)

 

This cost me a case of beer for the mechanics to fix and ended up walking for the rest of the week. When I say walking I mean running about the mountainside with the Officer Cadets.

 

And then there was the time I got stuck in mud up to its floor pan.

 

Any one want to let me have a go in their 4X4

[belfastguzzi]

I used to live 4 miles up an old logging road

60653[/snapback]

 

Gorgeous pics.

4 miles up an old logging road sounds like heaven (though I can see you had a few downsides as well)

[belfastguzzi]

Why can't you buy a vehicle with manual everything so that you can replace it when it inevitably breaks ?

60670[/snapback]

 

Absolutely. That's what Land Rovers & pre-efi Range Rovers are for. Perfect, –ish.

 

Also what Moto Guzzis used to be for. Hope that's not changing too much and the resemblance between the Breva and the big Hum is only visual.

[belfastguzzi]

Any one what to let me have a go in their 4X4

60677[/snapback]

 

You're welcome. You just gotta get here.

Next year?

[helicopterjim R.I.P.]

I think of my H2 as a stylised lifted escalade with better weight distribution for driving in the kinds of road conditions that i see most of the time so theres definitely no delusion of thinking that it was purpose built for any kidn of serious offroading.

60670[/snapback]

 

Whhen you put it that way I agree with you 100%.