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2008 Hummer H3 Alpha Road & Trail Test

Honestly, I never took the H3 seriously when it hit the market. Sure I was biased.

The H3 is no poseur... especially in Alpha trim. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, American Auto Press)

After all, I'd driven the H1 when it was still simply referred to as the Hummer (or Hum-Vee), and was just wrapping my head around the premise of a heavy-duty pickup truck-based H2 when GM's premium SUV division invited me to Durango, Colorado to test drive its newest models.

I'd been in an H3 before, and remember being most impressed with its interior, and not because it was particularly better than any of its competitors, which are all pretty impressive, but mostly because Hummer's interiors had been less than ideal up to that point. The H3 set the tone for all future Hummers, with high-quality switchgear and even some soft-touch plastics here and there, giving the ute a pricier presence than the more expensive H2 of the time. Now the H2 is much improved and taken its place as the rightful number one (the H1 is no longer sold to Joe Public), as it should be, but the H3 is still quite nice.

The first H3 I drove wasn't just nicely finished inside, but it delivered a fairly good ride for a trail ready 4x4, and handling was more than acceptable even at high speed. And I have to admit to finding this especially surprising, because like the H2, the smaller Hummer is based on a pickup truck, and nothing as sophisticated as GM's full-size model, but rather its long-in-the-tooth Canyon/Colorado compact truck.

The unfortunate reality of this donor platform, mind you, was its powertrain. Not that the inline-five is a bad engine or anything; quite the contrary actually. It was smooth and reliable, but just a bit underpowered. In the heavyweight H3,

Special badging sets the Alpha apart. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, American Auto Press)

of course, this lack of oomph was even more apparent, especially after handing in the keys to a similarly equipped Nissan Xterra on the same day that I picked up the little Hummer. The Xterra was a rocket ship in comparison.

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