But before all that, in a last-ditch effort to keep the Hummer humming, GM dropped the Hummer HX concept at the 2008 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit (via Car and Driver). The big idea behind the HX was to make it smaller and give customer’s the ability to personalize it as much as possible. It was meant to be GM’s more upscale version of Jeep’s Wrangler.
And it all came from the fresh young minds of three graduates (David Rojas, Min Young Kang, and Robert Jablonski) from Detroit’s own College for Creative Studies, who GM had recently hired. Not surprisingly, they happened to be the very same “affluent young buyers” between 20 and 30 that GM was hoping to sell these SUVs to (via Car and Driver).
The overall 103-inch wheelbase was 10 inches shorter than the previous H3 model. It rode on massive 35-inch off-road tires, easy-to-clean rubber floors, and a gleaming aluminum instrument panel with configurable LCD instrument gauges wrapped in an interior that better resembled a flying machine from a video game than a four-seat 4×4 (per Driving Line). Each of the four bucket seats was equipped with a four-point restraint harness for extra protection and had a collapsible shovel, flashlight, and first-aid kit tucked away in them (via Car and Driver).
