K2 Drives: 2009 Chevrolet HHR

Remember? That guy from the old neighborhood? You know, the one by Little Italy...

Just over 50K miles...hard, hard miles on this one, but that wasn't the real problem.

Sal! That was his name; Sal Manella. Yeah, what a bad character he was. You wanted to stay far, far away from that dude. Every time you came in contact with him, you needed to thoroughly wash your hands afterward.

Kinda fun fender design, which doesn't need the dopey GM badge on it.

That's what the HHR is like; undercooked and half-baked. It never should have made it out of the GM kitchen. It'll give you salmonella...huh, huh, get it?!?

Where have I seen that grill treatment before?

When Bryan Nesbitt left Chrysler to join Chevrolet Design, he left the legacy of the better-than-expected PT Cruiser, which exceeded what it was based on at least from a platform level. The success of that design really hit us like a ton of bricks recently when we took one for a spin. For an El Cheapo, it was really something special. If it had been the upgraded GT with the SRT motor and whatnot, there could have been a sale.

Plastic wheel cover...egads.

So it was with great anticipation that we went to check out the next notch on Nesbitt's belt; the HHR. Similar in concept, there was even the SS variant, which I knew would be the one I'd most enjoy. Though this wasn't the hot rod model, at least we could get some measurements and drive it around a little, to get an idea if it would work for us.

This one had the optional(!) cargo carpet that doesn't cover the lowered back seats.

First up was the cargo area, which was excellent and the measurements were acceptable. The back seats folded flat...but the flooring back there was hard, slippery plastic. Weird. That has never worked, in any vehicle, including the Matrix/Vibe. It's destined to be damaged the instant you actually put anything more than stuffed toys and bunny slippers back there.

It was all downhill from there. Let's just cut to the chase; this is a design that should have never been signed off on as it is produced. Due to the porthole-sized front side windows and the ridiculously narrow front passenger and driver proximity, being inside this vehicle was a distinctly claustrophobic experience for us. My wife kept asking why was I sitting in her seat while I was in the driver seat.

Actually looks better in pictures than it really is.

It's difficult to see out of the front windshield if you're close to a stoplight. You really have to crane your neck to see if it's green or red.

Nesbitt isn't the only one to blame here; there's also the handiwork/responsibility of Michael Simcoe, who designed the interior. While functionally fine, the interiors created under his watch are just downright hideous, full of extremely poor materials that are disturbing to the touch. This being an LT trim, there were plenty of switch blanks. That these exist in this day and age is beyond excuse. It's a blatant flipped finger to the consumer of their product(s) by the manufacturer and there's just no reason for it.

AUX jack...yay! The rest was designed by Jackson Pollock.

It's possible that a livelier color interior in leather and/or a sunroof might cheer things up a tad, but it felt fundamental to me. I can only imagine what tooling around in a panel version must be like.

The chrome rings are the only decent part of this. It was
actually difficult to see the gauges past the wheel, too.

Driving it was an extremely bland experience, with nothing notable about it. It wasn't terrible, but then it wasn't anything write home about. Or even think about. Okay, maybe things would be better with the SS, but still...to get into one of those, we'd be looking at around $10K at least and the 0-60 isn't even all that compelling, at over 7 seconds with a slushbox. The RAV4, RDX and PT SRT are far more compelling cars for us; the first two are far superior in every way, plus AWD, at the price of an SS and the latter is far cheaper with even better performance (as are the first two).

Excellent back seat leg room...the only truly good thing about the HHR.

Even though it could functionally work for us, the HHR was a real dud. No wonder it only lasted a couple of years and was a sales fail. But there's something else that's bothering me about the interior...really needling me...