It almost looks like a Humvee, but some of the lengths and angles are tweaked a bit. If I had to pick, the Humvee looks beefier and tougher, but not by much. - Photo from the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum.
The military might even scrap them. No idea. What I do know is it's been forever since I've even seen a civilian Hummer. I see the odd H2 or H3, but those are mostly just normal GM vehicles with a re-brand. Cousins, like the Camaro and the Firebird. There was that yellow one that sat outside that body shop on Albert Street in Regina for years. There was a black one I periodically saw out and about, as well. That's all of them.
There's no mistaking an H1 Hummer. They look like absolutely nothing else on the road, and they maintain that title around three decades later. It's like seeing the results of building a vehicle from the parts and pieces of four Jeeps and a tank. They were pretty capable, but they were also quite underpowered in the early years. The weight and aerodynamics also made them horrible on fuel, not uncommonly under ten miles per gallon. The first Humvee debuted in the US in 1984, and eleven years later, the first vehicle that could even compare to it, the Toyota Mega Cruiser, debuted in 1995 in Japan.
First off, what a name! The Toyota Land Cruiser is renowned as an ultra- capable, off-road vehicle that can conquer any land. How do you raise the bar on that? You go bigger, way bigger, MEGA bigger. The Mega Cruiser, much like the Humvee, was built for the military, however, like the Humvee, they made civilian models, too. There were about 3,000 military-grade units produced and less than 300 for the general public to purchase.
How capable are they? As you may have already guessed, they're incredible.
They have a lot of the same features that the American Humvee has, such as portal axles with inboard brake hardware and an underpowered diesel engine. Want to win a race? Forget it. Want to keep up with the flow of traffic on the freeway? Forget it. Want to climb a mountain or cross a river? Game on. The 4.1-litre four-cylinder turbo diesel may get you there slowly, but it'll get you there. Not only that, it apparently uses around half the fuel that the Humvee does. Going through the specs, it's almost identical to the Humvee in every way, except for the fact that it also has rear-wheel steering. Remember those GM trucks that had the "Quadrasteer" option a couple of decades ago? It has something very similar to that, making the turning radius tight for its size. The only other vehicle I can think of that has that feature to compare to is the upcoming Hummer EV. Was GM motivated by their past pickup experiment, or did the influence come from overseas?
Regardless, much like the Hummer H1, the Mega Cruiser was also cut from production years ago, so if you want one, you've got to pay a premium, not to mention some serious shipping and handling.
