Wolfgang Puck Is 'Going Green' With His Massive SUV

As Eater pointed out after last year's Disney+ documentary on the life and times of Wolfgang Puck, the cultural touchstones, aesthetic, and trends of the '80s and '90s are back like "Die Hard" ... which is to say, with a vengeance. One need only look so far as the reunion of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck to see that America wants a bit of nostalgia in its pop culture headlines these days, and if there's evidence of some evolution and growth in said nostalgic touchstones, well, then that's just the cherry on the espresso martini.

Puck, who was certainly a headliner in the late 20th century with the opening of his wildly successful L.A. restaurant, Spago, in 1982, never really disappeared from the cultural zeitgeist. He's opened restaurants, smiled at you from soup cans, and catered more Oscar parties than he can count in the years since he started Spago, so it's not like he's new here. But in an effort to keep up with the times, do his part for the environment, or both, he's giving his commute to work a refresh that is at once retro and progressive. 

"Going green with my new [Hummer EV]!" Puck captioned a recent Instagram post. "Thanks [GMC]," he added, with a blue car emoji that is considerably tinier than the vehicle he was referring to. The photos and videos of the chef with his new toy are sure to make you "green" with envy.

The diminutive Austrian chef may be small in stature to begin with, at 5' 8," but he is positively dwarfed by the new ride on display in his recent Instagram share. The new all-electric Hummer pickup is mammoth, and Puck is cute as a button perched on the running board of the truck. ("Looking good, chef!" writes GMC in the comments of the post.) Spago even commented with a laughing emoji, asking, "Will this fit in our garage?" Comical though the disparity in size may be, the vehicle itself,like the chef who now drives it, is no joke. In fact, it's a super-truck that has "extreme off-road capabilities" and even a "crabwalk" feature, which allows the vehicle to sort of smoothly scuttle sideways, like a crab on a moving sidewalk (per GMC).

For a chef at Puck's level, presentation can be as important as the dish itself, so choosing such a flashy car was hardly accidental. (Or, as Green Car Reports puts it, "You don't buy a Hummer for its subtlety.") While electric vehicles have traditionally been smaller, more efficient models, the introduction of GMC's Hummer EV this year, along with the anticipated SUV version in 2024, is an indication that larger vehicles refuse to be left out of the electric trend moving forward. And, if the smile on Puck's face in his Instagram photos is any indication, that should make a lot of drivers (and professional chefs) very happy.