DETROIT – Scheduled for introduction at the 2008 North American International Auto Show, the HUMMER HX concept reflects the innovative minds of three new GM designers - David Rojas, Min Young Kang and Robert Jablonski - whose first assignment was to provide a vision for the future design of off-road vehicles.
According to HUMMER’s new strategy, the H3 is a great vehicle because of its smaller size, better maneuverability, and fuel mileage. So where does leave all their customers who bought the H1 and H2 because of its gargantuan proportions?
As a dyed-in-the-wool enthusiast, I find superficial excess repulsive in whatever form it takes. Yes, I think heavy-duty trucks and SUVs are a garish display of vehicular excess unless they’re towing, hauling, or otherwise justifying their gluttonous existence. But it wasn’t until the second-generation Toyota Prius became the darling of the Hollywood left and the Brie & Merlot quasi-literati crowd that similar feelings of disdain for this posterchild of parsimony began to well up inside me.
Finally a commercial that tells the truth!
That was my initial reaction to seeing one of the new Hummer ads that lets people know its product will help them compensate for being inadequate. The first one I saw shows a woman with her child in a playground waiting in line for the slide. Another woman walks up, pushes the first women’s child aside so her kid can go on the slide. What does our first woman do? Does she stand up for her child, either aggressively or with understanding? No, she shows the world what any true coward would do: she goes and buys a big vehicle to “empower” herself. Anyone with any common sense will see that she is still the same coward who can’t stand up for her kid as soon as she steps out of her three-ton monstrosity, but hey, Hummer isn’t looking to sell its SUVs with common sense.