Follow-Up Test 2008 Hummer H3 Alpha

The 2008 Hummer H3 Alpha reminds us of an old advertisement for Marlboro cigarettes, the one where a cowboy is seen lighting his cigarette from a flaming log plucked from the campfire. You see, cowboys don't use Bics or Crickets. Hell, this guy is so manly he doesn't even use the manliest, smelliest of lighters, the Zippo. Hell no. He uses a chunk of fiery lumber like a real man — a Marlboro man — is supposed to.

Similarly, the 2008 Hummer H3 Alpha seems to say, "Let the crossovers have their comfy rides and reasonable step-in heights and decent cargo space and fuel economy. I am the Alpha male. The leader of the pack. I will breed first, eat first, walk first in line and I will light my cigarette by whatever absurd means I damn well please."

GM pumped up the five-cylinder shortly after the H3's introduction, but that was merely a stopgap until the Hummer could do the sensible thing and plunk a V8 under that fake, plastic hood vent. Sure, it required the firewall to be modified and the front frame rails to be swapped out, since this 300-hp 5.3-liter V8 is essentially the same engine that powers most GM full-size pickups.

Due to some exhaust constraints and air emissions sensitivity, the Alpha's version of this V8 makes 15 fewer horses than the engine makes in the big pickup. Still, that's 58 hp more than the 3.7-liter inline-5 that remains the choice in the base model of the H3. In day-to-day driving, the V8's massive increase in torque will matter more to owners than the off-road friendliness of the inline-5. At 320 pound-feet, the V8 pumps out 78 more lb-ft of twisty torque action than the five-banger. Its peak torque also arrives at 4,000 rpm instead of 4,600.

This means that an H3 Alpha won't get left at the lights by every other car on the road, as the original did. The Alpha gets up to 60 mph in 8.8 seconds. Not exactly greased lightning, but it is more than 2 seconds less slow than the original, plus much, much quicker than a stationary object. Still, the Alpha is a second slower to 60 mph than the V6-powered Toyota FJ Cruiser, another truck on the cartoonish extreme of styling, and only about a second quicker than the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, the basic off-road buckboard that can muster only 205 hp.

So what did we learn? Well, we learned that the chassis of the Hummer H3 is not bad, at least by the standards of a vehicle supposed to be dedicated to off-road performance. And we also learned that when we take off-road vehicles to the test track, we're going to feel a twinge of guilt about it later.

© Source: edmunds
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