You Probably Forgot About The 260 HP Chevy HHR SS, But I Bought One And It Was Epic

“You have to get this car,” repeated my spouse, sensing my continuing hesitation to entertain an over six-thousand-dollar successor to beloved Pete, my old PT Cruiser (whose story appeared in these pages last December). We were traveling back home from a winter break visit to parents, and stopped in a Delaware town to check out a five-speed Chevrolet HHR SS. The clear coat on the red front bumper was peeling, and the interior was showing clear signs of age. But the car looked sharp otherwise, had good brakes with newish DSW06 tires, and reminded me of a puppy pulling on the leash during the test drive.

It was a shocking turn of events to hear her advocate for, nay convince me to pursue this car. I had acquired the PT Cruiser sort of under the cloak of confusion from our collective decision-making. (Though not exactly a veto, “I want to have to do nothing with any of this,” she had said.) While she appreciated Pete for what it was, she often joined friends mercilessly teasing me about it. She never truly liked it, partially because the front seats could not be raised, a deal breaker for her comfort.

[Ed Note: Nick, who once wrote a review of his manual Chrysler PT Cruiser, is back after almost a year to write about his PT Cruiser’s successor, the similar but much faster Chevy HHR SS! -DT]

Yet Pete’s departure three months before had caused some soul searching in our household. We’d seen the convenience of a second car, especially since our aging BMW was in the shop a lot. Should we have kept it despite its incongruous image, the friend ribbing, its age, lower safety ratings, and its own frequent repairs? To this day, I do not know the answer.

What I do know is that Pete cast the mold of the Doodle Wagon with lasting authority: the successor would have to be another inexpensive tall hatchback that could support a lounging doodle in the back, preferably be a manual, and be more reliable and efficient than the BMW wagon it’d play second fiddle to. As I learned more about my old PT Cruiser’s designer Bryan Nesbitt, I started looking for, you guessed it, his subsequent creation: a Chevy HHR. Equally maligned, it would fit Pete’s boots perfectly.

I came of age in Eastern Europe as the Iron Curtain was falling, and grew up appreciating mostly German and Italian cars of the 1980s and 90s. I had never really driven what’s considered a fast car; to me speed meant smallish four-cylinder manuals screaming through narrow alleyways and city streets, not top speed runs on open highways. I did not find American cars generally appealing for quite some time. I was not aware of the HHR SS and had no real notion of GM’s association with performance motoring (I know).

As such, the High Heritage Roof Chevy, as its moniker stood for, was doubly unfamiliar to me. It was the creation of the very same Bryan Nesbitt who had penned the unexpectedly successful PT Cruiser, after he was hired by GM to essentially copy that same formula. Its retro styling, said to mimic the design cues of the 1947 Chevrolet Suburban, was just about the polar opposite of the clean lines of the Fiats, Volkswagens, and Benzes of my childhood. Paradoxically, the formula of the PT Cruiser and the HHR – tall, boxy, yet short vehicles with economy car roots and powertrains – spanned a new class of similar vehicles that eschewed retro nostalgia for a renewed automotive modernism of sorts – think of the inimitable Nissan Cube, Scion xB, and Kia Soul… not to mention the Honda Element. Be that as it may, the automotive press in 2006 panned the HHR as an underwhelming copycat to the genuiner PT Cruiser, while also being unrefined and slow, all the while praising its utility. After all the fun I had had with Pete, it honestly sounded just about perfect for doodle duty. I thus set upon finding a manual HHR.

Problem was… it turned out to be much easier to find a manual SS instead of the ‘regular’ one. I do not remember exactly when, or how, I became aware of the SS version, a trim level GM introduced for the 2008 model year. (The HHR was sold from 2006 through 2011; the SS was sold from 2008 through 2010). Compared to the base versions, the SS had received critical acclaim upon its arrival. Car and Driver called it cute yet nasty, while Jalopnik was impressed by its 260hp two-liter turbo and five-speed manual combo.

The owner of the red SS in Delaware was a former military guy I enjoyed chatting with. We discussed our love for BMW’s inline six, which powered our wagon and the X3 in his driveway. The SS had already 149,000 miles, but he knew its pedigree from new, and outlined the maintenance he’d done to it in detail. The car had the factory turbo upgrade done early in its life, allegedly bumping horsepower from stock 260 to 290. This SS had the same roomy yet approachable footprint of the HHRs I had already seen elsewhere. But it looked so much better sitting a bit lower and donning ten spoke wheels, not to mention the more aggressive bumpers and rear spoiler. The owner would not discount at all, and there was little real paperwork at hand. But he was somehow convincing, and I found the car strangely charismatic. Once I realized I didn’t want to leave, I knew we were buying it.

Nothing had prepared me for the drive home, which turned out to be a mixture of glee punctuated by moments of exhilaration. Ever careful not to be in front of my shenanigans, my spouse decided to follow behind me up Interstate 476 from Philly to Scranton. Past IKEA, I-476 turns into a lightly used, rarely policed one hundred-ten-mile toll road up and down mountains and forests with a 70-mph speed limit. As the clenched grip of driving an unfamiliar car slowly turned into a relaxed hand, I started appreciating the wonderful SS. The clutch action was on the softer side with predictable uptake, and worked well with the relatively short throws of the Saab-sourced shifter. I had never experienced turbo whoosh before, and found it low-key intoxicating, provoking it again and again with even gentle deceleration and acceleration. On fourth and even fifth, I’d easily walk the BMW, which couldn’t quite keep up with its mere 230 hp. The steering was a bit too light for my taste, but the HHR felt planted and tight, with its stellar suspension and great tires. There was little discomfort or lean while holding the line on sweeping turns at fairly high speeds. “Those taillights look great,” read a text from my co-traveler as daylight turned into dusk.

The Chevy turned out to be a very different beast compared to Pete. It did daily duties almost just as well, despite the higher loading floor and requesting 93 octane. But it was a far more competent car overall. I could tell my detailer buddy Keith instantly liked it, despite his gentle demeanor. A thorough detail, wind deflector deletes, and front bumper respray is all it took to enter daily service. Brian, the friend that owns a franchise repair shop, confirmed its generally good condition. In the fourteen months and ten thousand miles for which we owned it, it only asked for a new muffler and sway bar links, alongside oil changes and smaller odds and ends. Annoyed by the peeling shifter boot leather – typical – I allowed myself a single luxury: a custom stitched boot leather over an OTTP F35 short shifter from Michigan, featuring a red textured and engraved knob adorning a bare aluminum shifter body. Junking the aftermarket stereo for the OEM radio reinstall made the interior complete.

My sensible friends that drove sensible cars dissed the Chevy in gentler terms than “ridiculous” Pete. Pleased with their greige Outbacks – the official middle-class car of upstate NY – and Rav4s, they quoted Consumer Reports to question my decision. But then they started driving it. A friend’s Outback had to sit out a workday commute after a botched oil change due to a blown filter.

“A great little car!” he exclaimed about the HHR when dropping it off after the daily commute. Another exclaimed how much he missed the manual, spending a day with it while their Outback was busy. “Not exactly my old Sentra,” mulled a third, after a dog daycare run when the CRV was occupied. The Chevy was predictable, fast, and fun. It wasn’t just a great handler on pavement; the LSD upfront made it surprisingly competent on snow, as a few ski trips to our local slopes revealed.

Owning such a strangely compelling car left me pondering a few questions at length, including: Exactly how fast was it? The answer kept eluding me; I had to reflect on the meaning of speed, to recognize what the SS meant to me. It was a journey that started with euphoria, as I kept repeating “bigger turbo… 290 hp” to anyone who’d listen. Slowly though, I recognized it was not the kind of car I could truly use to race people from a stoplight. Unmodified, it was not that fast off the line. Or maybe I wasn’t great at it, not wanting to dump the clutch, force its mechanicals to couple and decouple violently, achieve chronometric speed.

As euphoria transitioned into reality, a mellow realization swept over me: the car’s strength was its usable speed, or what I jokingly came to call “dad speed.” It leapt off the line respectfully enough, but then it kept pulling and pulling with satisfying whistles and whooshes. This realization occurred to me during an I-90 run to Massachusetts and back (something I would have never attempted with the cruder and much slower Pete). It would just surprise people. Boys in tuned VWs would try to walk me, only to get confused in short order. There I was, stubbornly right next to them, along for the ride into triple digits. WRXers would have to work harder than they thought they would, and they’d look me over curiously. Godspeed, I’d nod, before finally backing off. Dads don’t need to win races, because they already have. They do need some dignity on the open road though. And they’ve got to get places.

The second question the HHR left me pondering was its legacy. The formula of a tall-yet-short boxy, practical, fast-ish manual hatchback has proven elusive in the intervening decade and a half. On paper, Stellantis has a modern contender of sorts with the base Dodge Hornet GT (for one more hot minute). It has a two-liter turbo that makes similar power to the LNF, comes with a sport suspension, and starts at $31k. But it’s really cramped inside despite similar proportions, and it has AWD and a 9-speed. It has already sold nearly three times more than the entire SS run…. but has nowhere near the cool look and street cred. The Bronco Sport may wear a similar form factor, but leans into the spirit of our times, which is off-roading, not speed. The RDX is fast, but it’s the next class up in length, and leans into luxury. It’s almost as if he spiritual successor of the HHR SS may just be…. the Mercedes GLB? If you imagined a trim right in between the base and AMG versions, you’d end up with a boxy tall-yet-short frame, optional third row, and turbocharged 260-ish hp goodness with a sporty suspension that cost only twice as much. It’s already looked down upon to boot, so it’d make the perfect classy HHR… the German Chevrolet.

Why did I sell the HHR SS, in the end? I got spooked by the mileage, mainly. I’d never owned a car with nearly 160,000 miles, and I had paid what counts as real money in our household. I wanted to be able to get most of it back (I did), especially since our daughter had been born during that time, and we needed to be careful with finances. But I felt the pangs of the terrible mistake I’d made the moment its buyer called me. An older gentleman from Connecticut bought it sight unseen, at asking price, when I posted it on FB. We agreed to meet at an airport an hour from me, to shorten his driving day. “I collect them,” he said, admitting to owning several, though most were automatics. He lavished praise on them, particularly at the ease of maintenance (pointing at the BMW for comparison). He handed me a thick envelope with cash, plastered a special plate on the car, and took off. Two hours later, he called from Albany, gushing over its tight driving manners.

But before that sale, the HHR produced a final act of heroism for us. A cold day before Christmas, we attempted the yearly 400-mile trip to parents in our main car, only to be thwarted by a failing steering pump before we could get out of town. My spouse, of all people, suggested we make a fresh start in the HHR the next morning, with our three-month-old baby and the doodle. I still remember the panic attack the thought nearly caused me, but we had little choice. As it turned out, we had the best time taking that trip, and I still remember changing my daughter on a cardboard piece wedged between my belly and the steering wheel. The red SS covered the miles with verve and great fuel economy. No, it did not have the sound deadening and road insulation of the bimmer, integrated Bluetooth, heated seats or beautiful Harman Kardon sound. It did not settle into speed like that serene inline six, though it was plenty fast. But when push came to shove, it let me be the dad I hoped to be one day, taking our family places, putting a grin on my face. And for that, dear readers, I’ll be eternally grateful to that red five-speed HHR SS… the doodle dad wagon.

All Images: Nick