Some US rural departments use these. They get 8 MPG (28 liters per 100 kilometers), but they really can go over very rough terrain which can otherwise only be accessed by a tracked vehicle.
A 4WD vehicle as French Acmat is much cheaper (about 18 liters to 10 km) to use these big Hummer. And especially the Acmat is very versatile, it comes in several variants: forest fires, ambulance, mobile command post, or on liaisons like the image link as picture 28785. In France it is used in most regions, but also largely by our military, including special forces.
I'm no fan of Hummers -- I think they're mostly a poor, macho imitation of military vehicles. On the other hand, the Hummer pictured here is an H3, the "smallest" of the Hummers. The H1 is basically a civilian version of the famous military Humvee; the H2 is somewhat smaller, and the H3 smaller still. The H3 is based on a Chevy/GMC compact pickup chassis. I checked out fueleconomy.gov for the range of gas mileages reported for the H3; it seems to be around 12-14. A 4x4 Chevy Tahoe (very popular in the US as a command car like the Swedish H3 here) is only slightly more economical.
Sorry FiremanNic its AN H2!and to be fair to our american friends , gas is cheap and it probably does what is asked of it and it wont cost the earth , as for the french Acmat , its french
Added by Lambert Arnaud on 27 July 2011.