The H2 is in all reality GM's answer to the Ford Excursion (although doing very well compared to the Ford, which is in it's last model year). The both of them (GM and Ford) make a good truck, and its only now (although 10+ years have gone by) that they realize that the Japanese automakers are squeezing them out of the car market. The Excursion and H2 get 10MPG respectively. The first year Excursion has a top speed of 87MPH. That's a good thing, I suppose, as I'd hate to see that behemoth do triple digit speeds.
It's been reported (Car and Driver, Motortrend) that over the next 5 years, each of the Detroit 3 will be spending billions on their car lines - where it needs to be.
The H2? The Excursion? Think of them as the 3500 (or 350) version(s) of the parent company's truck enclosed with another set of seats or better yet, take their current full sized vans, and add 4x4 and all of the features that should have gone into their vans years ago)
The comments about the manhood? Think of it as the car companies playing whos bigger with each other. GM for years has had the Suburban, and Ford's topper was the Excursion. GM answered that with the H2. Porsche recently made for sale their SUV - the Cayenne - which, in its turbo form (including $90,000+ sticker price) has a 450HP turbo V8 in it - which also gets 10MPG. Let us not forget the Toyota Land Cruiser/Lexus LX470 - which also gets a whopping 11MPG, along with the previous (1997-2002) Ford Expedition/Lincoln Navigator with the 5.4L Triton V8. Another 11MPG.
The second latest fad (and actually it's quite decent) is the car/SUV crossover vehicles - for example the Infiniti FX45 and Nissan Murano - or the Pontiac Vibe/Toyota matrix. The SUVs of yester-year are too big for the metropolitan American, thus sporty mini station wagons (Mazda Protege 5, Audi A4 avant, Toyota Matrix/Pontiac Vibe, Ford Focus ZX5, etc) are where they're trying to offer some of the features of an ``SUV'' in a car-like form.
Some of the SUVs out there, however, are tall cars, let's face it. The Honda CRV, for example - with real-time 4 wheel drive. Since when have you seen someone take one of those camping? The same for the Toyota RAV4. Both of them (at least the previous models) are civics/camrys with a stretched roof and bigger wheels.
We want efficient, functional automobiles and they just don't seem to understand that. I want a vehicle that I can take camping that doesn't cost $60 in gas each way, and at the same time one that I can park on the street in San Francisco. I guess that's just too much to ask for.
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