Chevrolet HHR - What the Hell, GM?

Amazing how my mind plays tricks on me. I could have sworn I had blogged already about a one of these but turns out I had only made reference to them in my blog about a Toyota FJ Cruiser.  Well, by golly, a vehicle this goofy looking deserves it's own blog entry so let's have it. Today we take a look at, in my opinion, a vehicle worse looking than Chrysler's "PT Cruiser". That's saying a lot considering how gawd awful the damn PT Cruiser was. Ladies and gentleman this is a Chevrolet HHR or Chevrolet "Heritage High Roof". Would a Chevy Cobalt wagon by any other name be as ridiculous? 

Introduced back in 2006, I know, you thought it was before that, who knows for sure if the suits at GM were gunning for the same buyer that would look at a PT. The auto industry, much like the music industry, is funny like that. You assume one thing and in you could be completely wrong. Although there were five model years between the launch of the PT and this thing, there stood a chance that Chrysler got wind that GM was doing a little retro car based trucklet and rushed something into production to get there first. Not that it matters but in the context of the time period that the two could have been sold next to each other in a gently used "previously owned" lot, the connection was invariably there. Ten years or more removed and that association wanes. 

Then again the story goes that the iconoclastic Bob Lutz locked the engineering team behind the Chevrolet Cobalt and Pontiac G5 in a room for a week and ordered them to brainstorm ideas to improve upon what they originally came up with. Amongst the soundproofing and space-age bushings they came up with, they also came up with this thing that was allegedly inspired by a 1949 Chevrolet Suburban panel truck. Hmmm, kay. If you guys say so. If they said it was inspired by a "2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser" I wouldn't be so incredulous. 

Despite similarities outwardly and underneath, both the PT and HHR were car-based, you'd never know it by looking at it but the HHR was a significantly larger than the PT. While its wheelbase is only a half inch longer, the HHR is almost seven and half inches longer. It's also wider and taller. However, despite the extra bulk, somehow the HHR has one cubic foot of cargo space less than the PT. The hell, GM? 

And, sorry, these things only make sense as adorable utility vehicles. Shoot, if I was a plumber or an electrician, an HHR panel van, that would be one of these without windows, would be my vehicle of choice rather than some scary looking mano y mano full-size truck or van. A tradesman who's non-threatening to women is a tradesman who's going to get a lot more phone calls. 

Remarkably, the HHR made it through GM's 2008-2009 reorganization and kept on truckin' all the way to the end of the 2011 model year. The Chrysler PT Cruiser met the crusher after 2010. Bob Lutz, whom I think I have great respect for although I shudder to think what it must have been like to work with him or for, while still with us here in the land of the living, did not survive GM's great purge.