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Pimp My Hummer – Rapper Tupac’s 1996 Hummer ‘Eliminator’ For Sale For £333,333

The Steeple Times
Tupac Shakur 1996 Hummer H1 Bonhams auction

Matthew Steeples reports on the sale of a £333,333 ‘pimped’ 1996 Hummer H1 that rapper Tupac Shakur bought just a month before he was gunned down and killed in a 1996 BMW 750iL leased by the ironically named Death Row Records just as his alleged killer goes to trial

New York born rapper and actor Tupac Shakur – also known as ‘2Pac’ and ‘Makaveli’; born as Lesane Parish Crooks in 1971 – was well known for his love of flash motors and often featured them in his music videos. Whilst the black 1996 BMW 750iL he was shot in on 7th September 1996 is currently being hawked by Celebrity Cars Las Vegas for an astounding £1.3 million ($1.75 million), another of his vehicles is due to be auctioned later this month at a much lower sum just before a suspect in his slaying is finally due to go on trial also.

 

Purchased new on 16th August 1996 by the All Eyez on Me star and convicted sex offender just a month before he died in a Las Vegas hospital on 13th September that year, Bonhams will sell what was described in 2016 by Page Six as a “fully loaded” Hummer H1.

 

Made popular after prominence in TV footage during the Gulf War conflict and Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming the first civilian to purchase one, the AM General Humvee – originally known as the HMMWV – was launched to the public in 1992 and later retroactively renamed the H1. Early versions were basically 7’2” fender to fender in length demilitarised HMMWVs that had been adapted to adhere to federal road use requirements. Later versions were far more luxurious. The most extreme included a double decker, stretch limousine version of a H2, as featured in ‘The Steeple Times’ in October 2012.
Accompanying the auction listing for the 23rd January sale, Bonhams include a black and white photograph of Tupac Shakur in the vehicle.
Another image of the star shared widely online shows him waving from his blinged up beast.
The 1996 BMW 750iL in which the rapper was shot on 7th September 1996 has been repeatedly offered for sale at sums quite frankly ludicrous. It currently is priced at £1.3 million through Celebrity Cars Las Vegas. On the fatal night, Shakur had been in Paradise, Nevada to attend the Bruce Seldon vs. Mike Tyson boxing match at the MGM Grand. He had been accompanied by his manager and Death Row Records founder Suge Knight and after the fight as they headed to the Death Row nightclub, Club 662. Stopped by police first at 11pm on Las Vegas Boulevard, but released without a ticket, the convoy in which the BMW travelled was subject to rapid fire on the passenger side from a white, four-door, late-model Cadillac sedan at 11:15pm. Shakur was struck four times whilst Knight was hit by shards only.
The rapper had an extensive and varied car collection that included a ‘daily driver’ Rolls-Royce Corniche IV that the website 2PacLegacy.net declared as being something he was “quite proud of” and was “often seen driving.” After his death, however, his mother Afeni Shakur remarked: “I discovered he had next to zero, next to nothing. I discovered that the home that he had thought that he had just bought, was not his. I discovered that the Rolls-Royce that he was so proud of and that he loved so much, was not his. And since they were not his, I didn’t want any part of them.”
The music video for 2Pac featuring Dr Dre’s ‘California Love’ (1996), part of the ‘All Eyez on Me’ album, featured a number of Hummers including the one to be auctioned by Bonhams.

The 6.5-litre, turbo diesel V8 engine beast of a motor was customised for Shakur and features such things as an external PA system with three sirens, a twelve disc Clarion sound system, Sony GPS, a central tyre inflation system, air conditioning, rear sliding glass doors, privacy glass, Dick Cepek off-road lights, diamond plated bumpers and a 12,000 pound winch. Rather brazenly, ’Eliminator’ is proclaimed in large white lettering in the space above the rear driver’s side fender.

 

After the star’s untimely demise, the vehicle was was appraised at £55,500 ($75,000) in his estate’s inventory, kept in storage for several years, offered in a ‘Picture Me Rollin’ sweepstake in 2003 and then sold in 2007 to Havenotz Entertainment owners Sardar ‘Candyman 187’ Khan and Yaasmyn Fula.

 

Fula’s connection to the vehicle is relevant in that she was the mother of Shakur’s godbrother Yafeu ‘Yaki’ Akiyele Fula; an Outlawz hip-hop group member nicknamed ‘Kadafi’ in honour of the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. ‘Kadafi’ had also been in Las Vegas on the night of Tupac’s murder, was questioned about the crime by investigators and then was himself shot and killed in New Jersey just two months later in November 1996. He also was seen ‘cruising’ in the Hummer with his godbrother in in Los Angeles during the short period that Shakur owned it.

 

Subsequently owned by a Canadian collector, the H1 “complete with a very aggressive front guard” was put up for auction in April 2016 for £74,300 ($100,000). The very last car purchased and pimped up by Shakur achieved a punchy £250,446 ($337,114), but that sale subsequently collapsed. It was reoffered at the same reserve in August that year and came with a California plate ‘YAKNPAK’ honouring both Tupac Shakur and Yafeu Fula.

 

Classic.com report that recent prices achieved for 1996 Hummer H1s have ranged from £30,400 to £81,700 ($41,000 to $110,000); Bonhams will sell this mammoth military-esque motor on 23rd January 2026 at their Scottsdale sale at The Westin Kierland Resort and Spa and have set a very ambitious estimate of £277,800 to £333,333 ($375,000 to $450,000).

 

Duane ‘Keefe D’ Davis finally goes on trial for his alleged role in the first-degree murder of Tupac Shakur on 9th February 2026. He has pleaded not guilty and has been held in prison without bail since his arrest on 29th September 2023. In an interview with ‘Rolling Stone’ in March 2025, Davis declared: “I’m innocent. I ain’t killed nobody, never did ever kill nobody… I’m supposed to be out there enjoying my twilight at one of my f**king grandson’s football games, and basketball games. Enjoying life with my kids… God got my back, and God will see me through this. He had my back with cancer, I survived the streets, and the FBI. That’s a big accomplishment for a man from Compton.” He previously told ABC: “I shouldn’t have said nothing. I’m innocent, man.” For context, ‘Rolling Stone’ added: “Prosecutors have argued that Davis was a longtime member and leader of group within the Compton, California Crips street gang. According to his indictment, prosecutors argued that Davis orchestrated Tupac Shakur’s murder and provided the .40-caliber Glock. Authorities claim the murder was retaliation after Shakur got into a physical altercation with Crip gang member Orlando Anderson inside a casino after a Mike Tyson fight on Sept. 6, 1996, hours before the deadly shooting.”

Meanwhile, on 9th February, an actor Duane Davis – also known as ‘Keefe D’ – is due to finally face jury trial for the murder of Tupac Shakur after having been charged in September 2023. Davis, who has played minor roles in Diggstown, M.A.N.T.I.S., Psych, S.W.A.T. and Team Knight Rider, is an uncle of the alleged shooter Orlando Anderson. He is also the author of Compton Street Legend, a book about the crime which his defence now claims “is based on self-serving statements made for financial gain” rather than an admission of guilt.

 

Follow Matthew Steeples on X at @M_Steeples and The Steeple Times at @SteepleTimes.

 

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Further pictures of the 1996 Hummer H1 to be offered at auction by Bonhams:

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