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You could be forgiven for thinking that ads for autos had sunk to a new low with the release of the new Hummer spots, featuring virility-challenged Gen Xers accompanied by taglines such as “restore your manhood” (or “restore your balance” as it was revised due to negative reaction) and to “Get your girl on.” While the ads may be a clever attempt to thumb the nose at political correctness, there’s enough inadvertently revealed about “Hummer Man” to make one rush to the bathroom with a bad case of stomach cramps.

I’ve been watching the ebb and flow of Hummer culture for several years and was hoping that – with the advent of $70-a-barrel oil and increased discourse on environmental issues – these gross beasts would have gone the way of the 8-track stereo. The earlier Hummer campaign featuring military iconography and music fit right into the post-9/11 jingoistic “We’ll get ’em” culture. But as support for the war in Iraq declined to new lows, GM unveiled its new Gen-X-focused ads.

Visiting my local supermarket the other day, a mammoth black Hummer with new plates cut me off as I was attempting to enter a parking space. Once the monster had slid into my space, out climbed a scantily-clad young woman with wraparound sunglasses, cellphone in one hand and baby in the other, nose in the air as she made a beeline for the supermarket.

Perhaps GM is not wrong after all and there really is a cohort of people out there who simply don’t give a damn – about either the state of the planet or about manners and civility. But then who knows, maybe the arrogance of the Hummer campaign simply reflects the death throes of an auto dinosaur headed for the Detroit graveyard. Hummer makes up just 1.6 percent of GM’s sales and has reacted defensively to criticism of the brand as it seeks to showcase its commitment to new fuels and its other range of vehicles. But that’s trying to have it both ways – the Hummer campaign says as much about GM as its green stance does.

Contrast this with the clarity in advertising for cars from foreign-owned companies, whose market share now hovers around the 50-percent mark of the U.S. domestic market. Volkswagen, for its Passat marque, has come out with ads featuring the tagline “low ego emissions,” and Honda has introduced a campaign called “Environmentology” to plug its fuel-efficient, low-emissions range of passenger vehicles. Then there’s Subaru, whose tagline “Built for Everyone Out There” is being integrated into groovy ads aimed at diverse cohorts, such as the gay market.

GM may be finding out painfully that its reputation in the long run isn’t the sum of its brands – and that the excesses of one brand is enough to seal its fate.