Most of you fellows don’t know but 3 of your Moderators ( Yours Truly, Moriarity and Rocky ) drive Retro 49 Suburban Hot Rods ( sort of Hot Rods ) Chevy HHR’s. Here’s mine 2009 HHR SS 4 Cylinder Turbo , 5 speed. Stock from the factory at 260 HP With a little chip, turbo boost, bigger intercooler pushes it to 300 HP. Has rare Pickle Fork Wheels all though can switch back to the factory stock sabre SS wheels. Any way maybe @Moriarity and @Rocky will post theirs. If you guys have one feel free to post yours too.
Nothing special about mine, just a 2LT 2009. It was my commuter car when I was working, now it mostly gets used in the winter. This is my third one of these. Good mileage and you can haul a little bit of stuff in them.
I always liked the retro stuff. HHRs, PT Cruisers, Prowler, Mustang, Camaro, and Challenger Not as cool as the original stuff but has style and doesn’t look like a jelly bean. Dan
I've had 2, one wagon and one panel. Fun little cars that don't look like Toyotas or Nissans etc. The wagon seemed to be a deer magnet. Had 3 run into it 3 different times, last one totaled it. I had bought it right and drove it almost 5 years and insurance paid me almost what I had paid for it.
I was just curious. I figured it was something added on. GM has done quite a few special models before with a black out or midnight edition, if it was something like that. Didn't know about the rims, so was just interested in it.
The rare Pickle Forks I was not aware of originally, another HHR fella told me. I'm researching that in more detail.
There probably is a lot of HAMBers with HHRs but they won’t visit the off topic board because you know Non traditional stuff lol Dan
To keep it going. Yours is real nice and I don't think they did many of the ss in the full production run. I was curious on the lights, I knew they did a smoked headlight factory: I'm not to familiar on them. Didn't know if they did anything on the tail lights as well which was why I had asked. Any other modifications or touches you had done or that was done with yours? Growing up use to see a bit at the car shows kinda done up. Don't see much anymore that I run into.
I used to get "nice PT Cruiser" with my panel. I'd just say thanks, wasn't worth the effort to explain.
I used to work for a guy who had one of the SS HHRs and it was a blast to drive. I almost bought one of the panel versions a while back but couldn’t see anything out of it.
We had a PT Cruiser a few years back. It was a fun car to drive, hung curves like it was on rails. Couldn’t keep the damn thing going though, if it wasn’t the crappy wiring burning up switches it was fouling the plugs, and when it did you had to put new ones in it. Never saw anything like that, no matter how much you cleaned and dried them, if they got gas fouled they were junk. Got tired of that crap and traded it in on some other soulless appliance…
My first one was a 2007 Panel. I ordered it new. when I ordered it I test drove an HHR that had windows. when mine came in the instant I pulled out of the dealership I said to myself "oh my what have I done, I can't see out of this thing" but I got used to it, you have to adjust the mirrors a certain way and really whistle by someone when passing, also it helps to back into parking spots. I put 300,000 miles on it. hauled a flathead ford engine in the back clear out to california, Went to the Turkey rod run swap meet in florida in it 4 or 5 times and had so much stuff in it on the way home there wasn't even room to fart in it. I ordered it with a manual transmission and they had a promotion for dealer pricing, I paid 13 grand for it. I didn't take any pictures of it but it is in the background ot this shot of the Dream Ros's Jowett Jupiter chassis
We have an 04 PT. We bought it when it was a year old with 5,600 miles on it. Its my wife's car, and she loves it. We bought it because my wife was putting 20,000 miles a year on her old car, driving it over 3 counties for work. A couple years later, she changed to a different part of her work and didn't drive her own car. Its the low HP turbo, with 180 HP (not the inter cooled version that has 240 HP). The car is fun to drive, for being an appliance. We still have the car, it has about 150K miles on it now. Its been a pretty good car for her, though all these years of driving over the salty covered roads is taking its toll. The rockers and rear wheel wells don't look so good anymore, but the under structure is still good, so we are keeping it until it rots away or dies. Don't even have a decent picture of it in the background of anything!
I have also seen a model that had the rear doors of a wagon (windows) and the quarters of the panel. That would certainly help with the visibility problems of the panel. I got used to it with mine - like @Moriarity said - a couple of changes in driving/parking habits.
I have seen a few of those also, I don't think they were offered that way though, I bet some people went back to the dealership and had window doors put on theirs... on another note, I went to a junkyard when my panel was pretty new and bought the back seat out of a normal HHR and removed the cargo compartments and put it in my panel. The people that rode back there really didn't like the fact that they couldn't see anything....
The SSR and PT are neat . I think both missed the mark in not being a full size on frame delivery . RWD with a V8 option , every service van and delivery van would have been one . think how cool it would have been , old style lettering two-tone paint and all ! that ss hhr is pretty cool , never even knew they existed would make a lot of folks look silly getting beat in one !
There is a Med Lab company around here that used HHR’s for a long time. They must have special ordered because all of theirs had panel sides with window back doors. They’re using some other kind of ugly suvs now.
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