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HUMMER H2: Designing a New American IconSeptember 30, 2002 For GM designer Clay Dean, designing the HUMMER H2 was a dream come true. Previously he had been on the design team that produced the C5 Corvette, and before that, some of the competition Trans-Ams and Camaros. So Dean has always been a performance design guy. But the HUMMER H2 commission took him straight into design nirvana. "It was a dream come true," says Dean of his design of the HUMMER. "That design job really tops them all, and at this stage in my career, it's pretty much the icon of what I've done." That's no surprise. It's a fact in the world of vehicle design that only occasionally -- rarely, in fact -- does one man (even one design team) get the freedom to design, from start to finish, as Dean did with the H2, a vehicle that turns out faithful to the concept that inspired it. Designers often take pride in saying they had a part in designing a successful vehicle. To be able to enjoy credit for the totality of the vehicle -- from concept to finished vehicle, is almost unheard of. And when the vehicle itself is an instant-icon of post-Schwarznegger American can-do-itiveness, a hunky vehicle that blends unmistakable military roots and fighting capability with Americans' current love of SUVs (the bigger, the more macho the better), the HUMMER clearly leads the pack. That's more than enough to make a designer proud. But what's even more unusual about the HUMMER is its quick gestation period. It went from a show car in Detroit to a production vehicle that Clay Dean is driving today in only 18 months. That's unheard of in vehicle design and production. It is also a factor, Clay thinks, in the fact that the HUMMER stayed so true to its original concept. "When a vehicle is designed with sheer purpose in mind," Dean says, "and developed this quickly, it's less likely that you will lose your vision. That's more likely to happen when a vehicle's gestation stretches over four or five years. With the HUMMER, there was no time to get off track. We just had to keep focus, and just do it." There was never any choice, in Dean's mind, about what rubber to put on the HUMMER. It had to be BFGoodrich® tires. "The HUMMER is a statement, or a visual perception, both real and implied, of what it can do as an off-road vehicle. It's a can-do vehicle, and the tires for that have to be BFG®, because they ARE the tire. "I grew up in California, and I had off-road trucks, and BFG T/As were pretty much the icon. All the winning in Baja, and the image BFG has -- they are the experts. They innovate. They identify the capability of a vehicle and design a tire to exploit that. Every HUMMER H2 rides on BFGoodrich® All-Terrain T/A KO® tires. "When you put BFG tires on a truck or an off-road vehicle, the choice of the tire telegraphs capability. And when we developed the HUMMER, we were able to pick all the cues that telegraphed capability -- cues that emphasize dependability, capability, defiance. For the tire, there was only one choice, and that was BFG." For Clay Dean, the HUMMER is icing on an already rich cake of previous design accomplishments. Driving his own HUMMER, he loves the reaction it gets. "Its appeal is classless," Clay says. "Which means people are excited by it whether they are young or old, rich or poor. They're excited by its image, by the undeniable capability that it telegraphs. And it's exciting for me not only to be driving it, but to have designed it." For more information on the HUMMER H2, visit www.hummer.com. |
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