Ford Prefect
Expedition Leader
A few thoughts for you, over and above the street legality of the thing mentioned above.
First, the DOD does not play well with others. You may have noticed that most government organizations do not communicate with one another, much less share contracts. Therefore it would have been REALLY expensive for the DEA to pick up a military spec HMMWV.
The only real option besides getting their own contract for several hundred, would have been to purchase a used on from DRMO, which is going to require some high maintenance costs because they military spent those things, and still does, they get used up!
Second, I do not know if you have driven/ridden in either, but I have driven both. The comfort level on the H1 is so far superior to that of the HMMWV it is ridiculous!
Third would be the top speed. The HMMWV is not a very fast mover, and boy to go back to that comfort thing, the faster you go in an HMMWV the worse the ride gets.
Lastly, we go back to street-ability. The HMMWV is very hard to keep the alignment right. This is really not much of a problem when you are planning to spend your life in terrain and dirt, off of the tarmac, but if you are going to spend most of your time on the tarmac then you do not want an HMMWV.
I agree, it seems odd that they did not just get one from the Army or the Marines, but once you think on it, you can see that it really would have been a poor choice of vehicle for them to use, and it really does make the price of the H1 seem rather paltry in comparison.