GMC HUMMER EV Design Walkaround With Brian Malczewski

What's your name, by the way

All right, so I'm Brian Malchewski. I'm the lead exterior designer on the Hummer EV. And so basically the whole idea behind the exterior design of this vehicle was to take the iconic nameplate of Hummer and bring it back

but not just bring it back in a simple, you know, re-skin retro way, bring it back in a really modern, new, and premium

And most importantly, you know, obviously give cues that it's electric because this is completely flipping the script on what, you know, the old Hummer, quote unquote, was

So there's still, the general feeling is obviously we need it to be a Hummer

but we have to move it upscale, more premium, and make it feel like it's just something

that's super modern and out of this world. So from the very beginning, the whole idea of this project was actually called a moonshot internally

And the whole idea behind that is like we're starting now and in 26 months we're going

to have a product ready to go delivered to customers. So that right there in itself is like a miracle in the industry

much faster than what we normally do, you know. So just based on that moonshot, that kind of started getting the wheels turning

And we took this whole idea of space exploration, NASA, everything kind of relating to that

we started using that as inspiration around the vehicle. So you'll see, for example, the Sea of Tranquility, topographical maps on the interior and exterior

You'll see the color trim, the way it's speced out right now in the first edition. it's very NASA inspired, like almost Storm Trooper, again kind of playing up this whole space exploration

So it's got the white, you know, the tech bronze and then the dark color for really strong, bold graphics

And then just in terms of, you know, having that original Hummer DNA

we wanted to make sure that when you look at the graphics on the truck

there some kind of hint of some of the old Hummer DNA So a great example of that would be the crosscar light bar here Let me light it up for you Sure So the cross bar the cross car light bar emphasizes the width of the vehicle But what we done

instead of just keeping it a nice, clean line, we've actually broken it up into seven vertical

slots here. And that is a direct reference back to the H1, H2, and H3. You know, they have the seven

vertical slots in the front. And then another great example. If you come around with the rear here

is these graphics on the corner in the truck, the whole corner is blacked out from top to bottom

connecting the graphic from the rail to the bumper, and that is also a direct reference back to the H2 and H3

So these are some of the bigger direct references to some of the older Hummer DNA

But then if you look at the surfacing of the body side and these big muscular fenders

you can see there's a lot of refinement in the section, and we really spent time to give it this more premium refined feel

but still trying to keep it this very muscular and teutonic thing

and same ethos goes into the interior as well so when you look at the interior and the IP

the cluster it's very structural very architectural you know it's flanked by these vertical vents and if you look

at the vents and the shapes of the vents they directly tie in to the shapes

of the tail lamp so you'll see this shape repeated all over the car

and it's actually it did kind of start with the H and we kind of

went from there, right? Cool. We also had a ton of fun with this thing

So we literally looked at like every square inch of this vehicle. You'll see Easter eggs all over the place from the light bar in the sill

This is the Sea of Tranquility map here. You also see a boot print in the Sea of Tranquility map, referencing the first step

And you also see that boot hidden elsewhere in the car I show you one real quick underneath the pad there at the top if you look under there you see a little boot And then we also had fun

I'll show you a real secret one. I don't think I've shown this one to anyone yet. Let's see here

If you put your camera on that lower cubby hole and turn a light out if you have it

you'll see a little front view of the Hummer down there too. Very interesting

Very sneaky. I think I got it, but I'm... It's on the back wall

So you really got to look back in the pocket there and flash a light on it

We really hit that one. Yeah. Just having fun, you know? Yeah. Fun

Another one of my favorite design elements is this American flag. We're very proud that this was designed and built in the USA

And, you know, what's more USA and badass than the flag? And of course, we did it right

You have to follow flag law. So on the other side, the stars always lead the stripes

That's very important. And my camera's down. So on top of that, you know, just the overall functionality of the truck is just absolutely amazing, right

You have the removable roofs. You have the removable center spine. You can take all four targas and put them into the trunk, which is just, it's an amazing experience

When you have all the targas off and the rear window down, it's truly like a convertible

It's like the craziest convertible you've ever been in. And by the way, you can bring your three friends or four friends even to share the experience

into the middle of the woods. In the middle of the woods. Yeah, imagine if you're at night just creeping on a trail with all the windows down and it's so quiet

It's truly a unique experience. This is the frunk, all power, power fronts

And then you can take, like I mentioned earlier, you can take all four targas and fit them into the front

Oh, it's like. So these boxes were specially designed to fit each individual target, right

because they all different shapes And so we numbered it to give you you know it this panel on this side of the vehicle and this has to go in first this target goes in second you know et cetera et cetera

et cetera and that's important because that's how they all fit in there perfectly cool yeah

what else i mean we have another good ode to the to the old hummers is the big old

beefy d rings you know like you have the big toe hooks and these are finished in the tech

which is the same color I mentioned earlier, that's featured elsewhere on the vehicle

That's an accessory color. We even had fun designing that. Like, I had fun designing a tow hook

And, you know, usually designers, you know, we don't really focus on things like tow hooks, right

But I had a really fun time working on that. I tried to cut out, you know, areas of the tow hook where it still has, it still has a, you know

an extreme amount of structural rigidity. But I wanted to try to give it a little bit more lightweight feeling by cutting those slots out

and giving it a little bit of texture here in the middle too. It looks a lot lighter than it is

It's pretty massive. Yeah, they are definitely BB. What else? Oh, and the technology and the lamps

both the tail lamps and these front signature lamps are absolutely amazing

So this was a first for the company. What these are to create this light bar

what this is is actually micro-optics that have been ingrained on this 3D acrylic blade

So what happens is the whole idea is to have this magical experience where you can imagine in a dark setting

You don't even see it right you don't even see the bar But when it lights up it becomes very crystal clear and you know you have this awesome walk-up animation

And you can see even though the LEDs are firing from the bottom through this blade

They're only catching light on the micro-optics. So that's how that works

Pretty amazing technology and it was definitely new to us we had never seen anything like before

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