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George <gecarey@home.com> wrote:
> List, this is the reply I just recieved to my inquiring about my
> Hmmwv body #.
[...]
> Craig MacNab wrote:
>
> AM General Corporation [...] does not endorse or support the sale of
> these vehicles to the general public or private entities. AM General
> further opposes any use of these military vehicles by individuals or
> entities outside of the military context for which the vehicles were
> designed.
Well, the civilian Hummers started out essentially the same as the
military ones, except for some minor changes for convenience or
regulations (12V electrical system, different tail lights, etc.), and
a lot of cosmetic and/or aesthetic changes that don't really affect
functionality. For all practical purposes, they *are* selling the
vehicles "outside of the military context for which the vehicles were
designed".
> AM General Corporation does not sell the military vehicle or
> service parts for the military vehicle to the general public.
Actually, they do... the air filter in my truck, and the CV boots I'll
be installing soon, both came from the local Hummer dealer. Some of
the boots needed to be ordered, and were handed to me in the box they
were shipped in, with AM General on the return address label. The
service guys at the Hummer dealer were happy to offer advice and sell
me their expensive parts, and there was a former-USMC M998 sitting in
the service parking lot... it wasn't the only surplus truck to go
through their bays, I hear.
The bottom line is, although AM General's refusal to provide some
simple information about the truck makes them look bad to us
collectors, it doesn't really matter in the end. We manage to collect
M37's without help from Dodge, there isn't a Philco help desk waiting
for me to call up with questions about my R-392 receiver, and I don't
expect the original Springfield Armory to sell me parts for my Garand.
If anything, even with AM General's unhelpful attitude towards us
HMMWV collectors, we're still much better supported than a lot of
other MV collectors. How many of our historic MVs still have many of
their exact replacement parts in production by the original
manufacturer, and available through local dealers across the country?
Whether they intend to help us or not, AM General *is* inadvertently
helping to support our hobbies, through their dealer's service bays
and parts desks.
If the factory chooses to not be openly helpful, that's their choice.
They may have valid economic reasons for taking that position... after
all, I doubt that they want to suddenly field several hundred research
requests by several hundred new owners of vehicles that they
manufactured 15 years ago. As long as they don't actively try to
curtail civilian ownership of MVs which have already been released
into the private sector, their official stance on the subject of
private MV ownership doesn't really matter.
They probably just want us out of their hair. I think they could have
done it in a way which bends fewer noses out of shape. A simple "we
never intended these vehicles to be used by civilians, and don't
support such use", without the "we oppose all such use" part, should
cover their legal butt without angering us collectors. Stating that
they are not staffed to directly support civilian owners would make us
stop bothering them, without making them look bad. If they wanted to
throw us a cheap bone to make us go away happy, they could have just
quietly stuck production data, such as the serial number range
manufactured in each month, up on a web page.
AM General might not like it, but I still keep both of my AM General
trucks rollin'! :-)
-- Mark J. Blair, KE6MYK <mblair1@home.net> PGP 2.6.2 public key available from http://pgp.ai.mit.edu/ Web page: http://www.qsl.net/ke6myk/ DO NOT SEND ANY UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL EMAIL TO THIS SITE
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Apr 04 2000 - 21:57:10 PDT