Introducing the world's most fuel-efficient Hummer. New York artist Jeremy Dean spent his last $15,000 to buy an unloved Hummer H2, cut it in half, made modifications and found two horses to drag it around Central Park. Some agreed it was art, others called it a travesty.
Dean called it "Back to the Futurama," claiming it was part protest, part sculpture, but a definite head-turner. It's otherwise known as "the CEO Stagecoach."
"It is a tongue-in-cheek satirical view of the future," Dean told AOL News. "The Hummer has been called a rolling indictment of the American psyche on wheels. To me, it represents an absolute pinnacle of consumerism and excess in every way.
"The Hummer was once a military vehicle used to kill and protect, and now it's toting people back and forth with lattes and groceries," he said.
"Hoover carts," named for Depression-era President Herbert Hoover, inspired Dean's design.
Such vehicles were not an uncommon sight in the rural South in the 1930s. They were driven by people who could no longer afford gasoline, so they hitched car bodies to mules and horses.
Dean called it "Back to the Futurama," claiming it was part protest, part sculpture, but a definite head-turner. It's otherwise known as "the CEO Stagecoach."
"It is a tongue-in-cheek satirical view of the future," Dean told AOL News. "The Hummer has been called a rolling indictment of the American psyche on wheels. To me, it represents an absolute pinnacle of consumerism and excess in every way.
"The Hummer was once a military vehicle used to kill and protect, and now it's toting people back and forth with lattes and groceries," he said.
"Hoover carts," named for Depression-era President Herbert Hoover, inspired Dean's design.
Such vehicles were not an uncommon sight in the rural South in the 1930s. They were driven by people who could no longer afford gasoline, so they hitched car bodies to mules and horses.
Dean, 33, bought his eight mpg Hummer from a Florida yard sale of vehicles repossessed by a bank. "If I had gotten a wrecked one, it would not have had the same power," he said."I bought it from a dealer in Orlando, and they'd just got it from a bank auction of repossessed vehicles. It was a further monument to the times. I couldn't get a bank and cut that in half, so a Hummer is the next best thing.
"We have been going through a lot of things in this country. The financial meltdown was a big part of everything. A lot of the excess and bigger-is-better thinking of the past two decades got us into the position we are in today," he said.
But Dean does not want to be perceived as a "whining greenie."
"It is easy to blame General Motors, and it is easy to blame the big corporations, but ultimately they were giving the consumer what they wanted," he said. "If people didn't want to buy these things, they never would have done it. So ultimately we are responsible."
Dean gave his project its first public viewing the same week last month that GM officially killed off the Hummer, after a production deal with a Chinese automotive maker fell through.
"I'm not saying that we should all return to horses as beasts of burden ... but, in the future, if we don't figure out energy and consumption, America is not going to be the world power that it has been," said Dean, who usually drives a Honda Element.
"Back to the Futurama" received rapturous reviews after a week on display at New York art fairs this month, but not everybody was happy.
H2 Hummer Horse Carriage - World's Most Fuel Efficient Hummer Car Video