2008 Hummer H3 Alpha – First Drive Review « New and Used Car Listings

2008 Hummer H3 Alpha – First Drive Review

After two years of lion styling with housecat horsepower, Hummer’s runt of the litter finally gets a V-8 variant, dubbed the H3 Alpha. With 300 horsepower and 320 pound-feet of torque, the Alpha’s 5.3-liter V-8 is the mill the H3 should have had all along. Surprise, surprise—we like it better even though we still don’t love it.

Not Enough Power?

When Hummer introduced the H3, it was steadfast that its new baby had plenty of grunt, although we certainly wouldn’t have used that word to characterize the 220 horsepower of the original inline-five. Still, without admitting fault, the 3.5-liter was hastily bored to 3.7 liters for 2007—and horsepower rose to a still-not-enough 242. We kept bitching.

Why were we being so hard on it, GM wondered? Man, had anyone at the company driven it? On the road? Sorry for being so demanding, but we’ve never found 0-to-60 times in the mid-10-second range to be terribly stirring, especially in this day and age when there are SUVs that can be going a mile a minute from a dead stop in half that time. Granted, most of ‘em aren’t worth much off-road, but still….Continued…