From: J Brennan (brenrock@optonline.net)
Date: Tue Aug 26 2003 - 19:00:46 PDT
LOL. As my Irish brethren say . . . Well dun lad, well dun!
-----Original Message-----
From: Military Vehicles Mailing List [mailto:mil-veh@mil-veh.org] On
Behalf Of Employee@MilVeh.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 8:41 PM
To: Military Vehicles Mailing List
Subject: Re: [MV] A fable about the HMMWV
"Why GM need not worry about HMMWV's"
Once upon a time Bill Berb and his wife Gargantua Berb
discovered they had an extra hundred thousand dollars
in her cookie jar, so like so many others in their
nice neighborhood, they just didn't know what to spend
it on. Spending money was always a problem, so much
money, so many things to buy, this was always a burden
for the Berbs. So, after tirelessly looking through
GQ, Vogue and Billionaire magazines for ideas, they
finally decided to spend it on a new vehicle they
didn't need, but what the heck.
Since neither of the Berbs enjoyed the great outdoors,
but they both liked to spend money and project wealth
and power, the SUV types seemed to be a good choice.
But, not just any SUV. So they visited showroom after
showroom and finally the Berbs wound up at a "HUMMER"
showroom! Classical music echoed through the giant
showroom and spiffy sales people in black suits
followed the Berbs like they were royalty.
What the Berbs could not know was thanks to a recently
repealed surplus law by the MVPA, they now had a
choice between two very different models, the HUMMER
or the HMMWV. There they stood looking at the two
vehicles, their heads turning back and forth as if
watching a tennis match, to the right they smiled, to
the left they frowned. Clearly one of the vehicles
had their attention already.
Should they buy this shiny Red Hummer with heated
seats, eel skin upholstery, rear view mirror
defroster, makeup kit built in glove box and titanium
and chrome wheels for a mere $96,459? Or should they
buy this used, slightly beat up olive green HMMWV with
canvas upholstery, no radio and no doors and not even
A/C for $23,000?
So the Berbs sat and thought while sipping a fresh
cappuccino ole' provided free by the salesmen of
course, after all this was a HUMMER showroom. "Lets
see," said Bill, "One is brand new and it has a great
paint job that shines a lot and also lots of chrome, a
super Mach9 stereo with a thumper system and I like
that. The other one is, uh, uh used, gee...never
owned a used vehicle before" he paused "and it has no
chrome and no shine, just the ugly flat green paint
... hmmmm" he mumbles.
Gargantua said, "Well Bill, this new red one goes 110
mph and the green one only goes 55 mph.... "Hmmmm"
says Bill looking at it with an ever increasing frown.
"Now that is a problem isn't it?" He mutters. Finally
Gragantua notices, "Oh dear, there isn't even a place
for my makeup in the old green one!" Well, that did
it, no makeup holders! After 11.2 seconds of deep
thought they made up their minds.
The Berbs bought the shinny new HUMMER and the
salesman was very pleased and they all smiled happily,
even the old tax man who collected $6,950 in sales tax
smiled as he put his hand out. As to the fable about
the nasty ol drab HMMWV's ruining the HUMMER sales for
GM, well it was just a fable, just like this story.
But, thats not the end of the story, I bet you're
probably wondering what about the old green HMMWV?
You see it was sold too, but to very different people
than the Berbs. It went to a man and his wife with 3
teenage boys who all wore blue work shirts and had
greasy hands. They came in later after they all got
off work at their lube shop and stood in awe as they
looked at the old HMMWV. The Dad kicked the HMMWV
tires solidly and when they didn't fall off, he said,
"OK, close enough...I'll take it!"
Now everyone was happy and so ends this story.
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