Thinking about trading in your 2008 Honda Fit for something with a little more muscle?
Well, starting tomorrow you can purchase a real military-issued Humvee retired from the battlefield and declared as surplus by the Pentagon. This is the first time that the former troop or cargo carriers will be offered to the general public — but for off-road use only.
Up to 4,000 of these gas-guzzling military vehicles will be put on the auction block for bidding through the website GovPlanet.com, which was created by IronPlanet, an online marketplace for buying and selling used equipment and trucks. The company reached a deal with the Pentagon in July.
Bids for the "demilitarized" Humvees will start at $10,000.
The surplus vehicles, originally slated for the scrapheap until a change in military policy allowed for their resale, have been stripped of "military characteristics," meaning they are no longer "armored vehicles," but still good for muddin'.
Restrictions on the Humvees' sale to the public were "lifted by the US State and Commerce departments in the last year or so," according to the Army Times. That cleared the way for the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) to sell the trucks to civilians.
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"We expect to have a steady stream of those available over time," Randy Berry, IronPlanet's senior vice president for operations and services, told the Army Times.
AM General, the company that has manufactured Humvees since 1985, has long been opposed to selling the vehicles to civilians, possibly because it competes with their civilian line of Hummers. The company's website says it "opposes any use of these military vehicles by individuals or entities outside of the military context for which the vehicles are designed."
Daniel Rivero is a producer/reporter for Fusion who focuses on police and justice issues. He also skateboards, does a bunch of arts related things on his off time, and likes Cuban coffee.