There I was, minding my own business on the Internet, when HUMMER sauntered up and threw me against a locker. “Alpha stole your virtual girlfriend. And your real one,” grumbled the ever-subtle brand’s banner ad. Okay, HUMMER, I’ll bite (so to speak). Who’s Alpha, what’s he got that I haven’t? And— most importantly— how is this going to delay the inevitable fizzling of your fifteen minutes?

My questions were answered two weeks later at a ride-and-drive in Southern California. There I was, strolling through the SUV staging area, when Alpha struck again. “Gahh! The glare!” Shielding my eyes against a blinding sun-on-chrome conflagration, I winced to make out the telltale Alpha badge, applied to a suspiciously bling-encrusted H3. Hang on. A glammed-up H3? This is what’s got HUMMER’s ad men revving-up their bollock-swinging routine?

Well, erm… yes. But what HUMMER’s particularly pumped about is Alpha’s 5.3-liter, 300hp V8, borrowed from GM’s full-sized pickups. Like an under-endowed divorcee’s post-surgical-enhancement, this H3, freed of its flaccid five-cylinder powerplant, has something to prove. Thing is, most women I know are turned off by insecurity. Which makes me wonder what my virtual girlfriend saw in Alpha in the first place. Read more »