Original subtitles

Hi everybody, Jeff Dunham and Walter.

It's a beautiful day at Dunham Family Motors.

I think it's so-so.

Do you have something sad and tired sitting

in your driveway? - Yeah, my idiot son-in-law.

Most vehicles are designed

to get you from point A to point B.

This vehicle was designed with a mission.

To be the ultimate light tactical military vehicle.

It just looks wild.

It did its job so well, somebody said,

"Hey, let's add cupholders, air conditioning, and a stereo."

Because nothing says daily driver

like full combat readiness.

This is the story of two vehicles

with the same DNA, twins.

But when they came down the production line,

one got shipped off to war,

while the other got all the cushy stuff.

- How about this? - Look at the behemoth

in our collection here.

The 2006 Hummer Alpha, zero down.

Yeah, and it's extra clean. You know what that means?

- Yeah, we finally washed one. - Nope.

Throughout time, humanity has been obsessed

with getting places using anything but their own two feet.

We've tried all kinds of things,

until finally, the greatest invention of all time,

the automobile. - Ooh-hoo-hoo.

Moron!

These are-- "The Cars That Drove Us."

In the history of the U.S. military,

only two vehicles have marched

from the battlefield to the driveway,

the Jeep and the Humvee.

They really capture the imagination

of the American people.

As it turns out, we needed one

to pave the way for the other.

The Hummer was kind of the new Jeep,

except upgraded, you know, bigger, stronger.

But to understand how we ended up lucky enough

to squeeze a military machine into a two-car garage,

we have to go all the way back to 1939.

As the threat of impending conflict approached...

There was a realization

from our army that they needed a vehicle that was capable

of operating in the off-road environment.

And so the U.S. Army put out a call.

U.S. automakers, American Bantam...

- Yes sir! - Willys.

- Affirmative. - ...and Ford...

- Right away. - ...answered.

They came out with the GPW. The pronunciation of it

would eventually morph into Jeep.

Jeeps were deployed to every corner of the globe,

ready to spring into action.

The American Jeep was absolutely revolutionary.

The Jeep became famous during the Second

and after the Second World War.

The Jeep symbolized victory,

and soon the symbol of grit and determination...

became an image of pop culture from movies and television...

That packs an awful wallop.

...to comics and toys.

A recoilless rifle that really shoots.

But before long, playtime was over,

and the Jeep returned to combat.

In the jungles of Vietnam, with all of the rivers,

with the swamps, it had limitations.

They needed something better.

And so it was determined that success could be achieved

by harnessing the mighty military power of...

a checklist.

The military went out to a variety of manufacturers

and said, "Here are the specs we want."

Something that can climb at a certain angle,

certain level of ground clearance,

carry a certain payload, go a certain speed.

All these specs.

And like they'd done with the Jeep,

in February of '79, the Army put out a call to companies

who were willing to take on this extensive checklist.

Teledyne, Chrysler Defense, and AM General would pit

their prototypes against each other at...

The Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground.

But one company had a small disadvantage.

We weren't a huge organization.

We were not a General Motors.

But what they did have was...

A real energized, hardworking core team.

The sole focus of AM General Engineering was the Humvee.

We were looking at it as a must-win contract.

No pressure.

Now, about that checklist...

The Humvee specification required

low-altitude parachute extraction.

- Hmm? - I'm gonna need you to explain.

A military cargo plane would open up their cargo door,

deploy a chute, and drop it on the ground from like 20 feet

going 100 miles an hour.

So how do you do?

We broke our frames. We actually...

...we had to strengthen the chassis of the Humvee

to be able to withstand that.

Check one.

But the chassis didn't just need to survive

being shoved out of an airplane.

It also had to politely endure the constant pounding

from mounted weapon systems.

That strength of the chassis went up and held a weapons ring

so that they could operate a machine gun 360 degrees,

a tow missile, or other weapons.

We've actually mounted a 105 howitzer on a Humvee.

Check two.

The government specification required 16 inches

of ground clearance.

16 inches? So how'd they do it?

We took a seating position of a soldier and put his feet

right at the bottom of the frame rail.

So that means the tunnel comes up

considerably high, about hip-high.

That's because that's where the drivetrain goes through,

which gives it this unique additional clearance.

Check.

You combine that with the wheel hub,

it gives the Humvee tremendous off-road capability.

The vehicle has to be able to enter five feet of salt water.

As if that weren't enough,

it also had to be shut off underwater,

sit there for an entire hour...

...then restart.

And drive out without having

any detrimental effect on the vehicle.

Wait, does General Motors make an engine

that can go fully underwater?

We had to add a snorkel to the engine

so that it could breathe. - Check, check, check.

After years of development, countless tweaks,

and more than a few chassis later,

the three prototypes rolled into Aberdeen Proving Grounds

to go head-to-head in testing.

2 The year was 1982. Olivia Newton-John

was single-handedly making the FCC sweat

with her cheeky double entendres.

♪ Let's get physical, physical ♪

And testing of the top three prototypes

of the U.S. military's newest

high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle

was about to begin.

While AM General was busy cracking chassis

and flooding engines, Chrysler Defense

and Teledyne were hard at work on their prototypes as well.

Teledyne Continental, they were basing

their prototype off of that Lamborghini Cheetah design.

While Chrysler Defense's design was based

on their existing expanded mobility truck.

The Army took those prototypes,

to Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland.

The test and evaluation

commands most comprehensive facility.

The vehicles were put through over 600,000 miles

of abuse in every miserable condition imaginable.

Just 24 hours a day through all kinds of terrain

and various environments.

With each team nobly battling it out.

Competing for a billion-dollar-plus contract

to provide the Humvee for the Army, Marines,

and Air Force.

Ultimately, one was chosen.

And that was the one that was designed by AM General.

And it was the ultimate military vehicle.

Selected for production

by the U.S. Armed Forces in March of 1983.

When we won the contract, it was like, "Wow."

We actually had a party.

And rumor has it, AM General partied

into the P.M. that night.

Because Dave and the gang

now had over a billion reasons to party.

It was one of the largest defense contracts ever.

This was kind of the beginning of the Hummer phenomenon.

The word became, "Oh, my God, now we got to do this."

When AM General began cranking out its battle wagon

for the military, it answered to two names.

Hummer or Humvee.

Ultimately, Humvee became the name

that stuck, standard-issue and mission-ready.

And the Humvee's mission? Do everything.

We created over 15 different variants.

The Humvee was a huge step forward from the Jeep.

It's more powerful.

It's got greater ground clearance.

It could go through 60 inches of water.

It could go up a grade of 60%.

The Humvee absolutely took it to the next level.

For the next decade, the Humvee would exist

exclusively during peacetimes, but that would all change...

on December 20th of 1989.

And for the first time,

the Humvee was heading into combat.

When we invaded Panama to get rid of Emmanuel Noriega...

Drug agents arrested him on the spot.

The Humvee, it performed exactly

how they had hoped it would.

It-- whether it was in an urban environment

or in a jungle environment.

It became the second Jeep, so to speak, except upgraded.

You know, bigger, stronger, and everything.

Let's hope so, because its next task...

was a doozy.

The car all of a sudden became really world famous,

because of the Iraqi war.

This was a war that was being televised in the United States.

You could see these Humvees going across the desert.

Big machine guns on top, and then the left

and then the right, you know, armored windows,

armored this, armored that.

Soon, the course of the Humvee's fate would be

forever changed, not on the battlefields of Iraq,

but rather...

In the executive conference room,

we had a fellow from marketing came in and said,

"We just got a phone call from a celebrity."

2 By 1990, the Humvee was a critical part

of the armed services operations.

It could be seen transporting service members down the streets

of many American cities from Maine to Oregon,

specifically Astoria, Oregon.

Welcome to Astoria.

Astoria had become a popular filming location.

And on one fateful day...

This is your new kindergarten teacher.

Those two worlds collided.

So we were filming "Kindergarten Cop,"

and we were driving on a freeway to get to the location.

It was early in the morning, and then all of a sudden,

and I looked over to the other side,

and there I saw a bunch of Hummers.

It was like a lot of them, one after the next coming.

And I looked at that and I said, "This car looks so cool."

I mean, it was unbelievable.

The Austrian in Astoria was in awe.

Hey, snap out of it!

And immediately fell in love with it

and then contacted AM General directly.

I was so impressed by the cars,

I got to look into if those cars are available.

But there was one small hitch.

It's not legal.

They said, "No, you cannot really own one."

Because for that, we would need permission from the Pentagon

and from-- the list was going on and on and on.

Apparently, civilians can't just

buy military equipment.

He can't drive it on the road. It's illegal.

But Schwarzenegger was never one to shy away

from aggressive negotiations.

And so...

I was the chairman of the President's Council

on Physical Fitness.

I said, "You know, I know Dick Cheney,

I know Colin Powell."

Let me just get into it. And I got the permission.

They felt kind of like, "There was no secret military stuff

there that we should be concerned about."

So I basically bought one.

The Pentagon may have rubber-stamped the sale,

but that doesn't mean the Department of Transportation

would let the rubber hit the road.

Of course, it wasn't street-legal.

We had to build the vehicle for him to meet

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.

It was a completely new electrical system,

all new lighting, all new sensors, adding ABS.

You need to have the interior done in a padded way,

because if you have an accident, you hurt yourself.

So it's safe, so it is legal.

We had to develop doors because the Humvee doors

were cloth, and there's a requirement

for side-impact.

What I like about the Humvee is you don't

have to do a [bleep] thing

about building it up and making it ballsier because it has

the biggest wheels on it.

It has the interior that's tough.

It has the windshield wipers that are tough.

Everything is rugged about this car.

The military version is very stark inside.

Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't want it stark inside.

He wants a nice car.

So they made it a little bit nicer inside,

a little bit more usable.

Including putting an air conditioning there,

which was not in there,

and a heater and stuff like that.

Of course, it needs power windows

and power door locks and heated seats,

a whole new interior.

I then took it back to Hummer,

The AM General, and I said, "Now here is

what the civilian Hummer could look like,

so it is street legal."

So it became kind of like a concept car.

One day at work, our CEO comes on and said,

"One year from today, we're going into production

"on a commercial Hummer.

It's gonna be available to the public."

The plan was for AM General to make...

The military Humvee--

...as well as...

The civilian H1 Hummer.

I would regularly visit the factory, test drive

the various trucks that they built.

He would bring them to Aspen.

I would drive them without snow chains.

Up the mountains, there was deep snow, and it just climbed

up to the top of that mountain.

On the shoulders of the collaboration

with AM General and Arnold.

They made a few changes.

Then they built the first Hummer.

And I got not only the first Hummer, the concept car,

but they also now built

the first Hummer off the assembly line.

All the workers were there, and they gave me the key

to the Hummer. That was a day of celebration.

Everyone was very happy, and I was very happy.

And so what do you call the first civilian Humvee built

specifically for the biggest action star in the world?

Oh, he's the Terminator, the tough guy,

and this is a tough vehicle.

It was love at first drive,

and Arnold wanted to share that feeling with the world.

He helped convince AM General

that millions of people will buy a real off-road car.

The biggest movie star in the world had just launched

a free ad campaign.

I would use this car to drive up to a movie premiere,

and then all of a sudden people saw this car,

and paparazzi would be photographing it,

and all of a sudden the picture was out there in the media.

Oh, and speaking of ad campaigns...

When you've got a real thirst,

nothing can keep you from the ice-cold citrus taste

of Mellow Yellow.

Mellow Yellow bought ten vehicles,

and that was the first vehicles we ever built commercially.

And they were rough.

Me and the Hummer took a little shortcut.

When I first heard that AM General was planning

a civilian Hummer, my thought about it was it was ridiculous.

Until I actually saw it.

The H1 very much looked like the military version.

A wolf in a field of sheep.

And it very much operated like the military version.

Climb the steepest hills

and conquer the toughest terrain.

The Hummer is a military truck.

You can get out of any situation with the Hummer

in the desert or in the snow.

Especially with unique features like the...

Central tire inflation system.

You have automatically inflating or deflating

of the tires from inside to have more grip to get out of any

kind of a situation.

Go through 30 inches of water, blast through snow.

Just like with the big deltoids, with the calves,

the abs sticking out and all of this stuff.

And it just, you turn on the engine...

You know, it was

ballsy-sounding. It was just perfect.

2 Thanks to Arnold's backing, the H1 had no problem

drawing attention, just not the kind that ends in a sale,

which left AM General's marketing team

asking the question...

Who is the H1 Hummer customer?

A Hummer is not for everyone.

- In one word... - Rich people.

OK, two words.

Add options and the price climbs

to an eye-popping $91,218.

Which adjusts to $176,000 today.

But even if you were sold on the price,

good luck finding one at your local dealership.

In fact, there were only two ways to buy a Hummer.

Fly to South Bend, Indiana and take their driving course,

or order one from the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog

and fly to South Bend, Indiana and take their driving course.

Either way, two Hummers made

the perfect his-and-her holiday gifts.

And it was successful enough.

I mean, at the end, they didn't sell,

you know, a million of these cars.

which was what you really want.

To do that, the Hummer needed to court a new customer.

And in 1998, that slightly tamed beast

took center stage at the Detroit Auto Show.

The buzz was loud enough to reach the ears

of a high-ranking executive who made a phone call.

I got a call from Jack Smith,

who was the CEO of GM at that time.

He says, "Mike, you've been to the Detroit Auto Show

and seen the reaction to the Hummer?"

And I go, "Yeah, I have, it's a-- it's pretty amazing, Jack.

I think there's something to this brand."

We came up with this idea

that we wanted to buy the brand from AM General.

General Motors was all in on the Hummer.

We would design and provide all parts and engineering,

and in return, we would pay AM General a manufacturing fee.

General Motors came out with the H2.

The Hummer was gonna be a daddy.

Make it smaller, more user-friendly,

with a nice interior, but authentic Hummer,

and we could sell a lot of them.

As for the man who had already sold lots of Hummers,

Arnold agreed to make about six appearances for Hummer

to launch the H2.

Good to see you.

Became just a huge hit.

I like very much to buy these Hummers.

And with the H2 hogging the spotlight,

it was time for the civilian H1 to take a bow.

They thought, if this car is gonna come to an end,

let's go out with a blaze of glory.

They decided to come up with something called

the Hummer Alpha.

They put in the bigger 6.6 liter Duramax engine,

stronger transmission. It was just bigger and badder.

The beginning of the end and the last of its kind.

The H2 was now all alone in the product line,

which didn't sit right with Mike.

I sold GM on the idea that we had to do an H3.

And then someone sold someone

on the H3 marketing campaign

where a robot impregnates a monster.

Genius.

Well, be it Mike or the robot,

the H3 was conceived

and then in 2006 was delivered right on time.

The H3...

...which was an even smaller version.

With H1, H2, and H3, we got a franchise.

A franchise that would prove short-lived,

undone by a sudden spike in gas prices,

and the minor inconvenience of a global financial meltdown.

And eventually, General Motors just decided to sunset it.

The sun didn't rise again for the Hummer brand until 2021,

when...

It's been resurrected.

The new all-electric Humvee.

Who would have thought?

The electric Hummer, it was fantastic.

Because before H1 Hummer birth the H2, H3, or the EV...

...the Hummer sprang forth from the military might

of the United States Army's most trusted workhorse.

It could do things like no other vehicle.

And there's still nothing better than the Humvee

when it comes to the light tactical vehicle

for military requirement.

It was, like, absolutely phenomenal.

But the Humvee had another role,

to inspire millions of Americans.

I love this thing for all the right reasons.

Rugged, battle-proven, versatile,

mission-ready, and reliable,

just like the proud men and women

who've served our country while driving it.

Let's see what's up here.

Whoo-hoo! That's it, right there.

That's how you do it.

Wow!

So, thank you, Hummer, for the adventure.

Thank you, Humvee. For your service.

And God bless the USA.

Oh! And I almost forgot...

Thanks, Arnold.

Let's have some fun now.

I kill you!