Tupac’s Badass Modified Hummer Is Headed to Auction
Rapper bought the truck less than a month before his death.
The black, four-door Hummer pictured here may not look much different from most of the other Hummers and HMMWVs cruising around, but there's one significant detail that separates it from the rest of the pack: unlike those other off-road-ready road hogs, the '96 Hummer seen here was once owned by Tupac Amaru Shakur.
Built back in the halcyon days before GM bought AM General and turned the Hummer brand into a marketing tool to sell body cladding-heavy Chevy Colorados, Tupac's Hummer reportedly arrived in the rapper's possession on August 16, 1996—less than a month before he was fatally gunned down in Las Vegas. Still, that was enough time for 'Pac to outfit the uber-ute with all sorts of aftermarket tweaks, like a 360º spotlight, an array of 38-inch off-road lights mounted on the roof, an external public address system, and the word "ELIMINATOR" in giant white letters above the rear driver's side fender. Because Tupac was apparently a really big ZZ Top fan, or something.
Inside, the Hummer has been outfitted with luxury accoutrements more in line with a modern-day Escalade than a 1996 Hummer. Burl wood trim covers the surfaces that aren't swaddled in beige leather; a Sony GPS system is there to lead you back to the West Coast; and privacy glass helps keep would-be assassins from knowing exactly where to aim. It even comes with a 12-disc CD changer, which turns out to be exactly the number of slots needed to fit Tupac's entire studio album discography.
2Pac's Hummer hasn't spent the last years rotting away like one of the Sultan of Brunei's cars, either. The car was raffled off in BET's "Picture Me Rollin'" sweepstakes in 2003, then bought in 2007 by the owners of Havenotz Entertainment, Sardar "Candyman 187" Khan and Yaasmyn Fula. We include this information mostly because we wanted to have an excuse to share those awesome names with you.
If the idea of being able to tool around town in the same seat 2Pac once perched sounds like your idea of fun, the truck is being offered as part of RR Auction's Marvels of Modern Music online auction between May 12 and May 19. Make sure your PayPal account is locked and loaded, though: while bidding starts at $10,000, the auction house expects the truck to ultimately sell for more than $100,000.
