More Like It: Jay Leno Checks Out Two Mil-Spec Modified HMMWVs!


More Like It: Jay Leno Checks Out Two Mil-Spec Modified HMMWVs!

When you spend years hoping, praying, bargaining with motor pool mechanics, attempting to bribe officers and still get nowhere, you tend to dream up builds for the HMMWV. Or was that just me? I’m not kind in regards to the Army’s go-to personnel carrier…it is a monster when off-roading, but it’s acceleration is slower than the coming of Chritsmas and the three-speed transmission equipped examples could barely make sixty miles an hour before they went all asthmatic. Even the overdrive models weren’t that much better…to not get ran over by someone’s Toyota Corolla, you had to floor it off of the line and wait for the engine to catch up to the forces needed to move the HMMWV’s bulky ass around. More often than not, I was dreaming up the perfect engine/transmission package for the Hummers…I kept seeing a Chevrolet 502 and a 4L80-E with some work done being an option, like a couple of Middle Eastern higher-ups managed to order, but I would’ve been happy with a 6.6/Allison combination.

Mil-Spec has been around for a couple of years and the guys do exactly what I was picturing in my brain in the desert: the powertrain swap that suits these big bricks perfectly, but then they go a step farther. They redesign the interior (another sorely needed modification), work over some of the body panels, and generally make AM General’s contribution to the nation a bit more user-friendly. They aren’t cheap…but the work that went into turning a battered H1 civilian model into a Mil-Spec truck isn’t just an engine swap, either. We’re talking a full-frame restoration plus all of the work that went into upgrading the military truck into the kind of rig that would shut up Lamborghini Urus owners.

We’re in no danger of ever owning one, but honestly, I’d be very curious for a drive in one. My last memories in a HMMWV aren’t pleasant…I’d like to see just how far Mil-Spec has taken the platform!


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