There's a new Humvee coming and we're jealous that we can't drive it
AM General just released the new and comprehensive NXT360 update package for its long-serving and much admired Humvee military vehicle and it's cool.
The AM General Humvee managed to blaze a trail into America's collective memory throughout the 1990s and 2000s in just about every action movie under the sun. The civilian version -- known as the H1 -- was driven by the rich and famous, perhaps most notably by former California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger.
While the civilian version came and went, AM General has continued to produce and quietly improve the Humvee, and now it has a seriously rad new version called the NXT 360, which makes the old version that we know and love look like the dinosaur that it is.
The NXT 360 features tons of new armor, more power, better brakes and some surprising safety tech.
Everyone already knows that the Humvee is a wildly capable and durable vehicle designed to survive in the most demanding of combat environments; however, technology and warfare have both moved along quite a bit since its introduction in 1984. When AM General went about designing the NXT 360 variant, it needed to take what the Humvee was already good at and make it better while also allowing the whole package to be retrofitted to older-model vehicles.
The NXT 360 package is pretty comprehensive in its changes to the Humvee. To start with, the NXT 360 gets a significant upgrade to its armor package with the goal of making it much safer and more survivable for soldiers under fire. The undercarriage, wheels and exterior panels are all upgraded, and the seats and doors receive upgraded "blast mats" designed to prevent bullet or shrapnel ingress.
More armor means more weight, so the NXT 360 package also brings bigger, better brakes to the party, which includes anti-lock braking as well as automatic emergency braking, traction control and stability control. The Humvee's famous central tire inflation system also sees an improvement with the addition of a second onboard air compressor to speed tire inflation.
The NXT 360 upgrade package for the AM General Humvee makes it look even meaner and more capable than ever before.
The Humvee has always been powered by a diesel V8 engine for reliability and torque, but it's never been what you would call "high-performance." The NXT 360 features a 6.5-liter turbo diesel that makes 250 horsepower and a respectable 460 pound-feet of torque. This upgrade allows the NXT 360 to schlep around more stuff, giving it a gross vehicle weight rating of 15,500 lbs. Finally, the Humvee has always had a reputation for being a stellar off-road vehicle, but AM General wanted to up the NXT 360's off-road abilities, and so it got increased suspension travel and burlier, bigger tires.
All these changes add up to a seriously intense-looking and wildly capable vehicle that we're bummed we won't get to drive unless we enlist.