Every so often, a vehicle comes around that’s truly groundbreaking. The Lexus RX, the Ford Maverick, the Chrysler minivans, and the Mazda MX-5 all either invented or rejuvenated a segment thoroughly enough to be sales successes, spawn a raft of competitors, or both. However, just as often, a segment-breaking vehicle can be a complete dead-end. Remember the Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet? The Chevrolet SSR is a curious case, because it was truly unlike anything before or since. Can you think of another power retractable hardtop convertible pickup truck hot rod made by a mainstream manufacturer? However, a novel idea is nothing without both execution and a need. Welcome back to GM Hit Or Miss, where we clear the fog of pre-bankruptcy General Motors product planning and see what worked and what didn’t. You know the drill.
In order to understand why the Chevrolet SSR came into being, we have to understand the trends of the time. By the new millennium, the ouroboros of postmodernism had firmly established a cycle of impenetrable nostalgia, and Chrysler was making money hand-over-fist on PT Cruisers. The Volkswagen New Beetle had captured the heart of every ex-hippie who emerged from a ditch weed-fueled haze as a white collar Reaganite, and even BMW was hopping on the bandwagon with the reborn Mini. It seemed that GM had no idea what to make of this retro-look gold rush, but being the myopic beancounters they were, knew there was money in nostalgia, and began doing the bare minimum analysis.
To make the SSR anything approaching an economical business decision, Chevrolet decided to base it on the Trailblazer midsize SUV. Now, the Trailblazer wasn’t bad for what it intended to be, but turning that platform into a sporty convertible is a bit like telling The Aristocrats in a convent — it’s just a bad idea. You’ll never get the center of gravity, ride height, or the weight right, and in the beginning, GM didn’t even try to compensate with horsepower or gears.
When the Chevrolet SSR launched for 2003, it got the same 5.3-liter LM4 V8 from the Trailblazer EXT. While 300 horsepower and 335 lb.-ft. of torque, once hitched to a four-speed automatic transmission and saddled with 4,760 pounds of retro styling, pretty much every performance car on the market could wipe the floor with the SSR in a straight line. The testing professionals at Motor Trend managed a zero-to-60 mph run of 7.49 seconds and a quarter-mile ET of 15.36 seconds at 91.35 mph, slow enough to get creamed by every 17-year-old in their parents’ V6 Altima.
Things finally perked up in 2005, when Chevrolet dropped some more gusto into it’s retractable-roofed financial morass. The LM4 and standard four-speed automatic were out, the six-liter LS2 and a six-speed manual gearbox were in, horsepower leapt to 390, and the zero-to-60 mph time fell to a respectable 5.5 seconds in Car And Driver instrumented testing. Unfortunately, two model years is long enough to build a reputation, and this newfound turn of pace was tempered not just by the model’s reception, but also by poor handling despite a re-jigged steering rack. As Car And Driver wrote:
The steering does feel a bit more accurate, and it’s easier to maneuver the SSR around town, but the truck still isn’t any fun for slaloming through corners. Push the SSR, and its truck roots are quickly revealed by its bouncy ride. The SSR pulled 0.82 g on the skidpad and stopped from 70 mph in 185 feet, the same distance as the one we tested in 2003.
Unsurprisingly, the SSR was glued to the showroom floor. While Car And Driver reported sales forecasts of 12,000 units per year, when Chevrolet only shifted around 24,000 in total throughout a four model year production run. However, the sales disappointment didn’t just happened because the SSR didn’t do the roadster thing well, it also happened because GM was targeting a particular customer without having a clue what that customer wanted.
According to an internal GM sales training video, the the targeted SSR buyers were “dyed-in-the wool automotive enthusiasts with a deeply-ingrained affinity for style. They consider themselves innovators, and if it’s a choice between style over pure performance, they’ll most often opt for style.” In addition, the ideal SSR customers were “image-conscious, upscale, and opinion leaders.” In short, they were also the sorts of people who bought Audi TTs. However, Chevrolet completely failed to realize why fashion-forward early adopters rarely gravitated towards anything based on the Chevrolet Trailblazer.
See, fashion-seekers gravitate towards craftsmanship and sophistication in addition to style, and the SSR had neither of those two things. It had an exceptionally plasticky interior, poor handling and a Budweiser image, yet was priced for platinum. As Car And Driver put it, “there are a number of roadsters out there that offer better all-around performance at the same price.” What was that figure? Try $41,995 in 2003. For reference, a 2003 Porsche Boxster had an MSRP of $43,365, a 2003 BMW Z4 3.0i had an MSRP of $40,945, a 2003 Audi TT Roadster Quattro had an MSRP of $39,660, and a 2003 Chevrolet Corvette had an MSRP of $43,895. If you were already walking into a Chevrolet dealership, why wouldn’t you spend the extra $1,900 and get a ‘vette? Likewise, if you were style-conscious, why not drink the Chris Bangle Kool-Aid and go with a Z4?
Well, maybe you needed the extra utility of a pickup truck. Indeed, with a bed length of 4.1 feet and a standard plastic bedliner, the SSR seemed like it could plausibly be a stylish way to haul DIY supplies back from Home Depot. However, look a bit deeper, and you’ll find some glaring compromises. For one, the SSR’s bed was only 14 inches deep from rail to floor. Even though the hard tonneau cover was removable, that’s not a brilliant figure. Here’s an even worse one: Minimum bed width clocked in at 39.8 inches. Ouch. It certainly didn’t help that many SSRs were also equipped with carpeted beds, a truly perplexing decision. Oh, and with a towing capacity of 2,500 pounds, the SSR is officially less practical than many SUVs.
It’s pretty safe and easy to call the Chevrolet SSR a miss. It wasn’t a great roadster, it wasn’t a great pickup truck, and it went out of fashion quicker than lip fillers. Was it novel? Sure, but in the slow-paced, tight-margin world of new cars, trading on trends is an easy way to end up on the back foot. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a company as bull-headed as GM, the SSR wasn’t the firm’s last crack at a retro car, and each successive attempt had better success. The Chevrolet HHR was a copy of the Chrysler PT Cruiser’s homework cheap enough to sell in volume, and the fifth-generation Chevrolet Camaro was genuinely both desirable and competitive. However, even in that last, best-case scenario, sales success didn’t continue for another generation. Nostalgia is fleeting, to the point where a trip down its rose-tinted hallways typically only works once.
(Photo credits: Chevrolet)
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All the marketing malarkey is likely just spin on “we’ve got a bunch of customers who have disposable income for toys, but through either years of manual labor or years of absolutely no physical activity are in no shape to get in anything even remotely low-slung.” Compared to the Murano Crosscabriolet, the SSR is way more successful if too weird to live and too rare to die.
Sister shop used to buy the hell out of these at salvage sale and fix or part them out. We had a light burn one we were gonna awd swap with a remote mount turbo kit, had a spare 6.2 laying around to make a sweet little ride. Ended up having a client want it real bad, so they fixed it and sold it as stock 5.3. Always wished we coulda did that build
The SSR is fine, but they went too far with the HHR and dont get me started on the PT Cruiser (Chrysler, I know). I’m glad the former exists, but the rest were the worst the cars of the retro-revolution. If I was going to live the rest of my Sam Beckett life trapped in a boomer body because I couldn’t figure out how to leap, I’d go with the 2000’s Thunderbird reboot.
Aside from the fact that they were Chryslers (don’t know much about them, never owned one, but I heard they have a thing for making things wrong), I find both the HHR and the PT Cruiser good looking and interesting for their time. They don’t annoy me by their existence, or make me want to scream for having stolen the Volvo or CRX’s rear window in the hatch, then made it into an ugly besat, like the Aztek (no, it won’t grow on me, and Walter White be damned).
To name it – I’d prefer them to other “regular” Chryslers of their time and using the same platform (whatever it is). All other things being equal, I’d prefer them.
Not sure if the annoyance was because of their design or because of the noise around them, here in the US ?
In Europe, the HHR was not sold but the PT Cruiser was. It was a hot item at launch, and EVERY American brand got their utilitary fleet switched to PT Cruisers when possible. Coca Cola switched to them, they were funny to spot, like the Red Bull Minis.
Another funny connection between MINI and PT Cruiser, they shared the same engine in the 1st gen R53. Oddly enough, the R53 is one of my favorite cars, and PT one of my most loathed. Go figure.
Dang. I NEVER knew this.
The PT Cruiser was a massive hit in the US, to the point that large institutional shareholders were publicly criticizing DaimlerChrysler for not anticipating the demand and not being able to build them fast enough. Dealers in California, where American cars usually have a hard time selling (at least before Tesla) were running waiting lists and buyers were paying above MSRP to get one. But, then, the initial demand was eventually satisfied, everyone who wanted one had one, and sales dropped off. Also, once it was common on the roads, it quickly transitioned from cool and trendy to completely unfashionable and embarrassing to be seen in. Chrysler didn’t help the situation by building it for a decade straight without doing a new generation or making major updates.
But, for a while there, it seemed like a rare success story at a time when DaimlerChrysler really needed one badly.
Bob Lutz poached the designer over to GM to do the HHR specifically because he was envious of the PT Cruiser’s success, as GM had done an internal market research study in the 1990s that identified a niche for a vehicle exactly like that, but decided the sales volumes wouldn’t be high enough for their standards and passed on it, he was pissed that they could have had their version on the market before Chrysler had they acted on that
What’s popular isn’t always right, and what’s right isn’t always popular. Kidding.. but only a little. The Aztek grew on me, but the PT will always evoke a wrinkled nose from me, no matter how irrational.
The first time I ever saw one in real life was during a weekend at the Hamptons, and all I can say is that it’s the only Chevrolet that I know of that looked right in its place at the Hamptons, with no underlying message whatsoever.
It was just there, crawling among expensive Euro rockets. It was there and it didn’t give a shit, and wasn’t compensating for anything or bragging about anything, or trying to prove anything. It was just good looking and belonged there.
It’s a beautiful thing. I love it. I loved it when it was first released (and I lived in Europe then and had no big affinity for any US-made car).
I love the fact that it made it to market. I love the fact that it existed. I love the fact that someone had the balls to put it in production. I don’t care if it sat on showroom floors – maybe it didn’t sell well, but the number of people who just came to see it and bought a Chevrolet econobox instead of a competitor’s one must be higher than zero.
Not sure if it was done right, aimed right, built right. From a European that was looking at Euro car catalogs where a Peugeot 605 or Citroen XM (both 3500lb cars) was sold with a 95hp Diesel engine and was considered “dynamic”, complaining about sub – 8 seconds 0-60 times in the early 2000’s or late 90’s is sorta fun.
Wasn’t there another thread about 0-60 times a few days ago, that raked north of 200 comments ?
Maybe it wasn’t made the way it should have been made. Maybe it could have been made better with better choices at no extra expense. It doesn’t make it a miss. G bless everyone who helped it go to production, one way or the other. And everyone who still owns one and keeps it alive.
It’s not the 0-60 time in itself (which was closer to 9 seconds), but how it feels—does the engine feel like it’s going to blow when you floor it, is that time made up all in the high end or is its low end strong (where people need it most of the time) and the 50-60 is where it drags out the number, and does it feel responsive under normal conditions? Then, is that published time on a sticky track brake loading the TC or revving and dumping the clutch or is it a real number people could achieve with little effort in a car they’re paying for? I don’t remember the exact characteristics as it was over 20 years ago, but I remember it felt like a tired dog. Maybe it was 0-60 in about 9 seconds, but it felt slower than cars I’ve driven that did the time in 13 or so.
A former neighbor has one of these. He was probably the real target demographic for them. Retired with disposable income and a penchant for American cars. He had a crew cab Hemi Ram 1500 for Home Depot runs, a ’60s Mustang coupe for weekend drives, and a yellow SSR for his daily driver. In spring and fall, the top was always down on his way to the golf course.
Typical GM bean counters and committees stifling what had potential. Liked the concept, hated the execution, and the clay model must have dropped on its side to result in those fender flairs.
Let us remember the first model Miata, ( all hail the miata) was a pretty slow manual car that just hit the convertible open market. The original Chrysler mini van was turned down by Ford and saved Dodge. All hail Lee Iacoca. The original mustang was also a low powered car with a convertible top designed for secretaries. You never know when a mediocre design is going to set fire in the market.
However nowadays a retro car like the SSR was priced crazy high. For a do nothing vehicle. But a decade of poor sales and depreciation? I would Dd one.
I love these dumb things so much. It’s the perfect work truck for me. A.) I don’t work hard, so I ain’t hauling anything big B.) I can do one co-worker max C.) I’m a tall dude, so I’m always up high. I like to experience shortness behind the wheel. D.) I love a good burnout. If these weren’t like 40k for a good one. I’d buy one, Rhinoline the bed. Then enjoy work burnouts on the clock.
I see a surprising number of theses still floating around in Boise. In fact, I just saw a silver one last weekend. But really, Pointless, stupid, and Boomery is very much the vibe of 97% of Idaho, so it makes sense.
This is a car that is great if you can share ownership with a dozen other people. I can’t imagine this is something you would actually DD.
I like these. I still want one. I don’t need it to be fast. When I was born my dad still had a ’52 Chevy 3100 pickup (I got to sit on his lap and steer all the way to the dump at the end of the trailer park, which is one of my earliest memories), and so I’ve always known what the SSR’s styling is meant to evoke. I’d surely rather have a real one of those Advance Design trucks, but pootling around in one of these with the top down would also make me smile for every mile. I think it would have made my old man laugh.
For some reason it’s stuck in my mind the original concept was based on a Corvette chassis. But I’m an old fart and my memory can’t be trusted.
But I do remember mini truckin’ was the rage at the time, essentially turning trucks that could actually do work into trucks you could barely drive. So the SSR not being much use as a truck was less of an issue. One of the Chevy execs said something like, “We have trucks that can do truck stuff, so the SSR doesn’t need to.”
This goofball program was a result of the notorious GM “jobs bank”.
Per the UAW contracts of past decades, GM had to pay people whether they worked or not. And because GM sales were well below projections, there were a LOT of extra UAW folks floating around. So in the bizarro world, for accounting purposes, this labor was “free” when applied to a program. GM set up a playground in Lansing Mich for surplus UAW folks to build stuff like the Buick “Regreta”, the EV1, and the SSR.
It seems every rural car show I go to in Alberta has about 4 of these, with super low mileage and 3 of them are for sale
I like them, after the 6.0 and six speed was an option. The Mini, PT Cruiser, HHR and the Beetle come off like everyman retro car. The price was right on those vehicles. The early 2000’s thunderbird, Prowler and the SSR were priced way too high. The SSR and Prowler especially because they were parts bin cars.
I always forget how comically large these things are until you see a picture of them with a person inside. By itself, it almost looks like it should be compact truck sized at its biggest. Put a human in there and you realize just how ridiculous the thing looks.
YES, YES, YES! My grandpa had one for about a year and it was the perfect car!
You could haul the 10 packs of water from Sam’s Club, take the roof down on a nice day, and make it to golf practice in time! I love the SSR and everyone else should!
I’ve wondered if these would’ve looked better with a much lower belt line. The attempt to mimic the bathtub proportions of 30s and 40s cars – especially those that’ve been hot rodded- made this appear unwieldy. Combined with the price, its quirks were hard to overlook. But watch, it won’t be long before these fetch top dollar just because they’re queer and rare.
My brother in Christ, they already do. I just searched for examples of manual SSRs within 250 miles and the nicest ones are listed in the 40s.
13.56 is pretty fast actually, but I am sure you mean the 15.36 it really was. that in itself was not that slow for 2004 though. And this was geared tot he same “Good Guys” car groups for daily driver use next tot he Prowler. both had decent power for the day, but were still more show than go.
I was gonna say, I bought an 03 Mustang GT in 04, and I would have loved for it to run mid 13’s stock…
HELL YES THE SSR! Such an incredibly stupid, misguided, nonsensical offering. I have a weird affinity for some of the Boomer bait cars of the late 90s/early 2000s, because they all came out when I was starting to like cars as a kiddo and represent such a truly bizarre time in the automotive zeitgeist…when American manufacturers were dry humping the corpse of Boomer nostalgia trying to suck every last cent up that they could.
It resulted in myriad abominations that aged like milk and there was such a shocking lack of ideas. They were just copying each other’s homework constantly and the products got progressively dumber and more watered down. The Ford Thunderbird that was made at the same time as this is another favorite of mine for similar reasons. It’s just so phoned in it’s hilarious.
But alas, there’s a place for slow, soft, dynamically challenged GT convertibles…and sadly there wasn’t for *checks notes* a 2 seat dynamically challenged convertible truck. It’s just such a stupid idea, and everyone except the execs at GM could’ve told you that. At the end of the day nostalgia is a finite resource, because eventually the folks that are nostalgic for certain places and times pass away, and what used to have meaning tends to have less meaning over time.
Death is inevitable. Alright I’ll try to stop rambling about existential dread and admit that some of these experimental cars are firmly in the “so uncool that they’re actually cool” category for me…particularly the aforementioned Cross Cabriolet. I love those stupid ass things and I’d rock one without hesitation. But the SSR is just so ridiculous and impractical that I couldn’t really justify one even as a joke purchase.
If I’m buying something that impractical there’s no way in hell it would be an SSR over something like a Corvette, Miata, Boxster, etc, regardless of how much I love to troll. And believe it or not there are people out there that WANT these things. They’re not that cheap! Nicer automatic ones run $25-30,000 and the LS2/manual equipped ones are even more expensive.
You’re literally in ND Miata/V8 pony car territory if you want the best examples of these. I can’t even begin to fathom who would choose an SSR over that then, several years ago, or now…but those people are out there, and I have no choice but to respect their commitment to the utterly ridiculous.
I mean the Miata was slow and technically a bait car for the guys who still thought the MG/Triumph sports cars of the 70’s were good in some way. the Miata is loads faster than those, but not by much, and it is otherwise mostly useless for daily driving in most of the country. But they were also reliable in a way and because they were slow and light they could be driven fast relatively safely even by the worst drivers.
the Trope about mustang drivers and light poles is because too many of worst drivers are still allowed to by the powerful ones.
Miatas are the opposite of dynamically challenged though. They’re brilliant to drive. Despite all the compromises there’s very little in the world that’s more enjoyable than ringing out a Miata on a curvy road. The SSR has all of the same compromises without being brilliant to drive, which in my eyes makes it much stupider. At the end of the day it’s a reskinned Trailblazer.
“Mostly useless for daily driving in most of the country,” really? I daily drove an Austin Healey Sprite for about 8 months without needing another vehicle, it worked great. I even purchased a 50 lb bag of top soil from Home Depot with it. If one can daily drive a 56 hp Convertible, I’d really doubt a 115 or so horsepower early Miata with a non leaky top, good wipers, and probably even AC, wouldn’t be just as functional.
Rant over, people today are spoiled by horsepower. One thing driving that Sprite has taught me is that just because you can’t get up to speed quite as fast as other traffic, doesn’t mean you are going to get run over. People do have some patience, that or they really don’t like following a car that is belching oil laced unburned hydrocarbons out of the exhaust.
Just because you had to, does not mean it was useful. and do it 12 months of the year in Iowa/Missouri and then get back to me.
I mean, the niche it was targeting makes sense to me. It’s cruiser, not a sports car, it’s got an LS under the hood, it’s got a folding hard top and a trunk well big enough for 2 sets of golf clubs and a rack of Miller High Life
And unlike an SL Merc you can afford the repairs to keep the wind in the area your hair used to be
I remember thinking these were emblematic of how out of touch GMs execs were, though I admittedly still thought they’d do better than they did, if not as good as GM anticipated. Typical GM, too, where they launched it half-assed before correcting the drivetrain after it was too late. Even so, it just didn’t make sense—sports car utility and premium price with truck performance and economy in a cynical retro package with a folding hardtop the few buyers that they expected to be interested would probably be worried about the reliability of. The convertible truck idea just never seems to be popular unless it’s an off road focused vehicle, though I wonder if this concept could have worked better if it had been launched with the correct powertrain and was more forward looking than retro—you know, the kind of thing that becomes the vehicle of nostalgia in the future rather than a flash-in-the-pan success if one at all. Either way, I doubt a Holden Maloo-El Camino would’ve done worse and would be a lot more valuable today (not that the used market is all that helpful to GM). Wouldn’t be as easy to go with the folding hardtop not being BoF, but again, nobody seems to want those and that couldn’t have been cheap to engineer.
FWIW Richard Hammond bought a yellow one for an unconventional road trip through Europe on The Grand Tour, and he loved it.
Of course he did, he’s a goddamn American after all
These are still the official dream car of retired couple with RV.
They should’ve just imported the Holden utes and rebadged them as El Caminos
It probably would have run afoul of the Chicken Tax and there’d be no convertible option.
CKD 😉
Was just going to comment on the same thing. Adding 25% of the MSRP for the Commodore ute would’ve had the SS V8 version being more expensive then a Corvette at the time.