If you, like this author, always dreamed of using a camo-covered, Army-issue Humvee as your personal golf cart, your dreams can finally come true — for a price.
According to the Army Times, the Department of Defense will start auctioning off as many as 4,000 military-spec Humvees to the public as part of its surplus-reduction efforts. In previous years, the off-road behemoths would have been sent straight to the military scrapyard, but due to changes in policies in recent years and what the Defense Logistics Agency spokesperson Michelle McCaskill describes as “cooperation from other government offices," the used Humvees will be sold instead of scrapped for the first time.
Via a contract won by IronPlanet.com, the first batch of 25 surplus Humvees will go up for auction on Wednesday. Most appear to have been built between 1987 and 1994, with anywhere from 1,361 to 38,334 miles of service to this country as troop and/or cargo transporters. Each of the current and future Humvees to be publically auctioned will have been inspected for defects prior to sale and stripped of any “military characteristics;" any wily-eyed customers and vigilante types will have to supply their own armor or artillery deployment devices.
Prices will start at $10,000, and owners are responsible for arranging transportation of their new playthings and paying in full within three days of the sale. In case you were planning to rumble up to church on Christmas morning and scare the little old ladies in the parking lot in one of these things, they will not be considered roadworthy. Not only will there be no titles for them, the lucky winners have to sign documents specifying exactly how they'll be used.
Despite their limited usability, Randy Berry, IronPlanet’s senior vice president for operations and services, says that there is a lot of pent-up demand for the Humvees, according to the report, and that he expects to have a steady stream of them available in the future.
Besides terrorizing a golf course, we imagine a lot of interesting ways to use one’s personal Humvee, from ranching to farming to deer hunting to painting it red and making it the coolest Christmas sleigh ever. So if you’re a really adventurous type with a lot of property and a fancy new F-150 that you’re sick of getting muddy, click on www.govplanet.com, pick out your favorite, and get ready to sit by your computer on December 17 for your chance to own it. LINK
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