2005 Chevy SSR

[aostling]

I saw this in Phoenix last week at a house near Piestowa Peak. I chatted with the owner, age 77. He said the truck is for sale. Rotating the tires is constrained -- the rear wheels are larger than the front wheels. Only about 20,000 were made -- have you seen one in your town?




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[oxford]

I’ve seen very few of them out in the wild.

[Doozer]

I would rather ride a bicycle in the winter.

-D

[lbender]

I would rather ride a bicycle in the winter.

-D

Com'on Doozer, tell us how you really feel.

[J Tiers]

I've seen quite a few.

More of them than I have seen of new Ford Rangers. The SSR must have sold better than Rangers 😉.

As for the style, I wouldn't have one as a gift. Nor a Prowler, PT Cruiser, nor the other "sorta like an old one" vehicles.

[The Artful Bodger]

I would consider one. Not for the folding hood but the concept of an every-day sedan with a big box on the back does appeal to me, in fact that is what I have been driving for the last 24 years.

[Dan Dubeau]

Chevy's failed attempt at prying nostalgia money out of boomers wallets. Much like the HHR, The Pt cruiser, and the Prowler for the rich boomers.

I've seen a few in the wild. Not a fan. Would rather have an old truck, but then again, I'm not really the target market for much of anything lol.

[J Tiers]

Eh..... Boomers may not be the market. We saw the originals, probably drove one, and we are not impressed.

More like the target might be people who saw pics of the old ones, and might think the fake ones are cool.

[Dan Dubeau]

Boomers were the intended target market (according to some magazine articles I read about them back then, take that for what it's worth....), but were more interested in either owning the originals, or not buying into the gimmick in the first place. I did know 2 people with pt cruisers though, and they both loved them and drove them into the ground. They still proclaim they were the best vehicles they ever owned. One was a Boomer, and the other my age (40).

The only fake nostalgia vehicle I kinda like is the NH Boomer 8n tractors. Still won't but one, but admit they do look pretty cool.

[The Artful Bodger]

So what is it that is not liked? The power to weight ratio, the handling, the performance, the lack of a back seat, the size of the load space or is it the rather gormless styling?

[ChazzC]

I saw this in Phoenix last week at a house near Piestowa Peak. I chatted with the owner, age 77. He said the truck is for sale. Rotating the tires is constrained -- the rear wheels are larger than the front wheels. Only about 20,000 were made -- have you seen one in your town?




.

I saw one of the yellow ones when they first came out. In yellow I thought it looked good, but you could buy a Camaro for less so I didn’t dig into it. The cap on the bed looks bad, and hides the best feature: the wooden bed.

the HHR (Heritage High Roof) came out the same year - saw a fair number of them on the road and tried one as a rental: decent ride, but not enough power to be fun.

[Doozer]

Turd melted in the sun styling.

-D

[Willy]

Not my cup of tea, and likely others as well as I believe GM only sold a little over 24,000 units. Even the 390 HP LS engine introduced in it's second and final year was not enough to help sales aimed a niche market at best.
Thankfully GM saw the writing on the wall and killed it before it cost them even more. A costly misguided attempt to answer a question that apparently was never asked.

An acquaintance of mine had one and his love affair ended rather soon after purchase, he was not interested in the truck aspect as much as perceived performance. He mentioned that performance, handling, braking, etc was underwhelming. Not a surprise considering it weighed close to 5,000 lbs.and simply did not have the underpinnings to inspire any hopes of achieving a performance image.

To me it's like a trike, which I don't care for either, it's neither fish nor fowl.

[Dan Dubeau]

So what is it that is not liked? The power to weight ratio, the handling, the performance, the lack of a back seat, the size of the load space or is it the rather gormless styling?

For me? It's just a mediocre attempt to cash in on nostalgia by churning out a parts bin special with no special engineering etc. In short, my opinion is "it looks cool, but I have zero interest in owning one". A lot of people felt the same way. I'm sure the original passion behind the project at GM had different plans for it, as they always do until the bean counters stepped in, but what they came out with initially was an over hyped flop in the press, and the sales never materialized. Even when they spiced it up with the Vette engine at the end. I think they would have done Much better if they went all in with the Vette power train right from the beginning, and marketed it as a retro performance truck. I worked at GM when it came out, and it's all people talked about. Mostly with a lot of Boomers, and the general target market. When it finally hit the road the general consensus was "that's it?"

Something I read about the prowler (a car I DO kinda like, but still don't want one), is that a lot of the sales were driven by speculation and collector market. Very few were ever driven, and still the market for them is just that. Whether that is the case with the ssr or not, I don't know, but the muscle car boom of the past 2 decades, was a big driver behind a lot of this fake nostalgia, but IMO they missed the mark on what the market actually wanted.

Now the Solstice was a cool car, and one I really wanted at the time, but I was just a broke college kid then. Maybe in about 10 years when the kids move out and I have some disposable cash I might pick one up to play with (does that sound like a familiar repeating market pattern to anyone......). I do like the mini's too, and almost bought one last year instead of my Fit.

[The Artful Bodger]

I did not buy my vehicle for the styling, which is tidy enough but not startling in fact half the body panels were virtually unchanged from twenty years before. I bought it because there are only two of us so no need for a back seat and it has true 750kgs load capacity. Sacks of groceries, sacks of cement, tool box or bags for a week away, in they go and the lid goes down.

The in-line 6 has enough power for my style of driving and of course is smoother than any V8 ever marketed.

There is one characteristic it does not excel in (and this may be the problem with the SSR) but fortunately I am quite secure in my masculinity.