There's only 216 of these in existence. built one year only and that's this. There is a door here and it pops. Kind of like a exotic car, but then you look inside and there's no rear seat.

It's all cargo. There's no window. It looks like there should be a window I wonder if this thing could take 100? Jake's uh turbo PT Cruiser Oh, that is a Boomer special there. You know that's we gotta do that.

Welcome to who he's garage. The dumbest Automotive channel in all of YouTube and this is my latest purchase. It is a 2009 Chevrolet HHR SS panel. probably the rarest GM performance vehicle made in the last 20 30 years, only 200 and something like 217 of these panel.

SS's made for one year only and I found this one at the Barrett Jackson auction I bought it for only 6 500, but it did have almost 200 000 miles on it and well, it was clearly used as a work vehicle as intended even though it was so rare. Obviously it wasn't worth all that much. So it's actually back from Las Vegas here in Kansas and today we're going to take it up to the car Wizards to see what an almost two hundred thousand mile HHR SS looks like deep mechanically but I'm not too worried because it does drive so well and also the engine has been replaced. Now since I posted this video I've been very, very happy with response.

I'm glad you love this hoopty that I purchased, but it has been very interesting to see what has come out of the woodwork. As far as the Enthusiast following of these which I had no idea I was a Salesman for them when they were new working at the Chevy dealer, we couldn't give them away, but apparently there's a big following for them now. People love these things. They're cheap to keep going.

and while there's one really crazy person in the comments that I couldn't believe it, he goes by the username long Brown Road one and he says I've always been a car guy and collector I never kept any daily driver for more than one to two years but seven years ago I bought an HHR SS manual G85 car with 145 000 miles for a daily I fell in love with it I sold most of my collection and started collecting these I own 12 now including two manual HHR panel SS's which is very very I think less than 50 of those I am at 300 000 miles with my driver and I get about 30 miles per gallon on the road and I always carry a lot of cargo I have all the others in storage. There are such great cars, the best I've ever owned and I've had about everything. So I thought this was kind of a troll post but it's not. People wanted to see pictures or it wasn't true so he posted on Reddit Uh, roast my car and it is indeed real I Cannot believe it is a garage full of HHR SS's and somebody has 12 of them.

Absolutely astounding. I'm going to stick to my one just for now. I'm not going to sell off all the cars behind me and collect only Hhrs probably because he's got the market corner there. but uh, I am very happy with this one, but we'll see what the car wizard has to say.

So let's head up to his lair. What is wizard? What are you doing? I'm taking a break I'm doing my uh, a couple times a day I come out and do rev sessions with my new exhaust and my Viper doesn't sound good. It does sound wonderful. well.

I've got a new Hot Rod to show you. Yeah! I See, you've made some improvements. You got the Viper badge back on you. Oh yeah, that does look very nice.

Well, not quite as nice as the rarest Chevy performance vehicle made in the last 20 years. The HHR SS panel and HHR is not performing. Oh, it's a s test man. Listen to this 2-liter Turbo floor.

Wow, Yeah, this thing's weird. Oh, it is very weird and very very rare. Yes, Wizard there's only 216 of these in existence. Built one year only and that's this one year only.

HHR panel SS That is how rare this thing is. So of course you may have seen the panel ones before, right? Yeah, or they did. No windows, no back seats. But it's funny.

There is a door here and it pops. Kind of like a exotic car. But then you look inside and there's no rear seat. It's all cargo.

There's no window. It looks like there should be a window. There's no window and you look Also, no seat. but this one has the rear cargo mat.

There's room for your tools or whatever storage you want. So this is like a handyman's special. You know what's with the old Myers cocktails. Oh well, so Bill is a friend of ours obviously I didn't want to use like a normal business like Hoovie's garage or TNA Adventures the dealership or whatever I Just thought oh let's do something fun with this and you know Bill Omar he loves his drinks and thought well let's make a good you know liquor delivery vehicle and yeah, anybody that knows him would know in the back would be full of gnarly.

Head Wine gnarly Head Wine Yes, exactly. but it does have a rear glass but you can see there's that SS badge turbo charging yes and it pops on the right side as well. It is a very practical you know that's pretty cool man. Yeah, you see the seats, the interior there, the two-tone all the ssness, and it's actually properly quick.

is it? I Was going to ask? All right, let's go I'm definitely tempted to drive it. Yeah, there's a few issues as well. Of course it has almost 200 000 miles on it. Oh wow.

One other fancy trick since it's the SS it's remote start by the way. yeah Let's Roll oh I'm seeing dollar signs already. Why is that uh, that hinge a shot a little? Jiggly huh? a little Jiggly Wow So what do you think I mean a little bit of wear on the interior but still really holding up well for almost 200 000 miles? I mean it leaves a little cleaned up, but it's actually kind of nice in here. The seats are comfortable I like the driver's position, you saw the boost gauge there right? Oh boy.

And since you're a Viper owner I think you can handle the uh, traction control off and the launch control there it is. Yes! So now you can launch it, launch it. let's see how it Stacks up against the Viper Well I know one thing. video Bob would definitely like the color scheme of this thing.

Well I actually left it with video Bob in Vegas and he has a non-ss panel and he had some criticisms of this thing that I sort of agree with. like if you do a really tight steering, it does do the clicking with the the CVS oh yeah I'm sure there's no cars coming. you can't see anything, there's no window there. A bit of a visibility issue yes, but it is a tribute to the old you know handyman.

Vans I guess I'll have to have you help me. If it's clear it is totally clear you can go hit it foreign with a cargo area. Not at all. just like it right? Not at all.

but it is quick. It is quick. Yes, oh it's got some shaky oh my goodness. oh the rotor warpage a bit.

Oh that's bad. yeah. I'll get it to go again. it's a bit of a shake.

Yeah, it shakes the whole car. Let's see how much boost this thing gets up to? No. Oh, just popped over 15 there before about 17. yeah, not bad, not bad at all.

I wonder if this thing could take 100? Jake's uh turbo? PT Cruiser oh that is a Boomer special there You know that's we gotta do that you definitely need? Oh yes, yes well after it gets a clean bill of health from you or clean enough I suppose. but it seems very healthy. Yeah it does. The motor has already popped once on this car because they had timing change issues.

the Ecotec turbo thing I guess they love to do that and explode the engines I Don't know what's happened, but it's happened to this one. so the motor should be fresh, fresh-ish fresh-ish Hopefully it was done well. that's what I'd love for you to inspect. plus the clicking noise plus uh, the brakes okay and whatever else you might find we I can hear the wind noise here because of that hinge is allowing the door to Sag Does it like the old pickup trucks? the the pins or whatever? Yeah, Spirited, it is.

Spirited I Wouldn't say fast spirited. It's just so funny that nobody wanted these things. Obviously, who wants a two-seat panel van or baby panel man? that's an SS with a turbo. Even though these weren't very expensive.

I Wonder who came up with this? Somebody said we need to sell this and it obviously didn't work 216. but the HHR was a little late to the party anyway versus the PT Cruiser So it was just a total failure into GM's bankruptcy. But it's an interesting one. It is.

It is interesting. What does this do? Oh, that would have been where like a little nap screen could have been a little readout, but it's just extra storage. All right. Yeah, is that where you store the Jimmy hats? Then we go.

This is definitely the first one of these to Grace your shop, right? it is. I've never seen one of these in my life. Well, rare is your specialty. Yeah.

I Expect you to treat it with the same dignity and respect as Leo's Murcielago I Don't know about that. We'll see. All right? Well there's my Ferrari V12 from the 456. still uh, sitting all apart.

but we were waiting for the heads. If they come back yet? Yeah, we got all the gaskets. just showed up. Okay, the heads are just finished resurfaced over here.

Are you excited? Daniel Son Yep This weekend this he's putting back together this weekend. Okay, here they are. There's some freshly skimmed heads after well, that overheat incident but I Am oh my. God Oh my.

God Talk about weird. GM Vehicles You: You have a dustbuster van in here? Yes, an Oldsmobile Silhouette Oh with the graphics and the 38 Hertz series one? Yes what? Yes, Oh I Want it? You want it. Oh and they even did the custom cover there for the dash and it says Dusty because it's the dustbuster van. That's right.

This is amazing. Have you done you? You have to do a video we have the new guy I Just hired started starting on Monday and this is one of his first projects. Really. Oh man, this is like a time capsule too, but oh and also looks like the Citron's back together.

Yeah! I Got suspension done I Still have some steering rack leaks and carburetor things to go through, but it runs and drives like it rides like a cloud. Basically Okay, well that's wonderful. So basically it took all the time for my in-store credit to get worked away for you to work on this. I Guess waiting for parts was the big thing, right? It was a huge ordeal getting all the parts.

Yes, Okay, well. HHR SS I Don't think it'll be hard to get parts for it. The weird and rare part is the panel part, but everything else. same as the Chevy Cobalt SS This engine was used in a lot of things.

so I don't I Don't think it's going to be that much of a challenge, but uh. one funny thing I saw I'm not sure how easy this thing is to work on here. Pop the hood is it looks tight and it looks like some mechanic was getting very angry banging their wrenches here. My goodness, what the heck, it actually doesn't look too bad.

Really? Yeah, yeah, a couple bowls. so I know. Jake Bickard complains endlessly about his PT Cruiser That'll be fun to talk about because he's done a lot of work to his and uh, it's an engine out for a lot of things. so I'm curious what you think it would be on this.

I Imagine how hard it would be to drop out or what would need to be dropped down, but hopefully you would need to. I mean there's plenty of room to do a lot of things that the PT Cruiser is horrible. It really is bad to work on I Don't think this one would be that bad at all. Okay, well you see any issues from the top? Um, I Don't see any oil or antifreeze or anything leaking anywhere.

Was there an animal leaving nuts and things in the intake? It looks like it urinated all over it too. Is that poop? Yeah, so there's There's animal feces, but easy to check the radiator for leaks. It's right here. Yeah, that might be the easiest radiator to change ever.

We know we drove it. There's no check engine line, there's no warning lights. so great power. I don't see a whole lot going on under the hood.

Really? Okay, so up we go. Yes, All right. Well you notice a missing nut and I just noticed something about the lettering up there. The gold does kind of clash.

I probably should have done it in white. What do you think? Yeah, yeah. Oh well. it is what it is.

but uh. I don't think it's all stripped out. The stud is just missing a nut I hate it when that happens. Yeah I did that recently I'm missing two of them now.

Well, they're still there. they're just detached and that makes two of us then right? Okay, so I'm told this is a fresh Ecotec Turbo Hopefully it looks it from the bottom I Don't know if is it? maybe it's fresh. It's been pulled out and redone, but it's not like a new engine or anything. Don't think so.

So maybe they just got one from the salvage yard? Yeah, possibly. but it runs good. It does run very, very well. Yes, look like it's missing a splash Shield that would go here.

Oh for extra aerodynamics with this high performance vehicle wizard? Yes, very high performance. Yeah, there's your clicking. Is that how you test a CV shaft? It's missing a nut and it has bad shafts. I I See All right? Yep, same there.

I Know it's a little worse it seems. Huh? That one's really bad. So new rotors, new pads, new shafts. Yeah.

the missing nut. A missing nut, the hinge on your door. But a front-wheel drive car. obviously.

The torque steer is nutty. The turbo looks new. Oh good. brand new turbo.

Okay, what did something drip? It's in my face. it's AC condensation. Yeah, okay. I'm getting in my face.

Well that's about the cleanest thing that's ever been in your face from under a car. So yeah, I see the nice new blue struts? Okay, and then this was a California Arizona Southern car. and it definitely looks at. as far as I mean, absolutely no sign of any rust at all.

No, no rust at all and the rear arm's a little old school for sure. Yeah, not very performance. no nice blue shocks back here it needs. Pads are about 80 gone.

I would say rotors and pads in the back. just do all four and be done with it. Okay, let's check the other side the nuts. so just use one nut.

Okay, well, not a lot wrong. Really? not no. I Am kind of curious because they haven't made these things for a long time as far as Parts availability and prices. so I guess we could check.

Yep, let's get it on the ground and go check some prices. Well, since my in-store credits run out, you can finally start shopping again. Yeah, but this time around. I don't think I'm going to be able to afford much a Vipe.

Oh Viper Toy 27 Yeah, it's a toy with Venom first one. Okay, I'm liking this. It'd be cool on my desk. I'm I'll do that for you I'll buy it for you right now I don't think there'll be any fainting spells or anything like that today.

Maybe not on your end. So there's just like three or four little things, right? Yeah, and I don't even know if I want to do the work. Why? It's not even hardly worth it. There's no money to be made.

You did say it was easy to work on though. It is easy to work on, so there's that redeeming. Even though you don't make very much money, it is cake, so at least I think so. As far, Speaking of cake on the lug nut that was missing I'm gonna throw you one of my nuts.

Yeah, when you put it that way, it doesn't sound that great. But thank you very much. Very good. So what do we got? We got that out of the way: the rotors and pads.

The front rotors are sixty dollars each, the rears are 40. and the pads are like 10 20 bucks. So like on an SLR McLaren the ceramic rotors are twenty thousand dollars each. and it is not as rare as an HHR SS panel.

And you're saying it's 60 for a rotor for a rotor and 40 in the back for brand new rotors I'm like, okay, so with the pads and everything, it's 400 bucks to do all four all the way around. And that's includes the labor that is for four. you know, disc brake. That's probably the cheapest I've ever heard of for a brake job.

It's insane. All right. So then there's that. and then there's the like.

the CVS right? Okay, it gets worse for me. Why the CV shafts are only 40 bucks per side. The the whole thing, not just the boots I Mean they're remans, but they're still. that's all you can buy.

But it's not putting new. it's the whole dang CV shaft. How many? Bucks So you have the brakes off so there's not much labor either. It's probably pretty easy, right? right? So with parts and labor, 250 bucks for both of them? Oh okay, all right.

the door hinges are 80 bucks for both. You also like the hinge pins and all that. Okay, the hinge, the pan. everything.

There's a bit of wind noise driving down the highway that is a bit annoying, but you buy them in pairs because the passenger seemed okay. Well, it's a top and a bottom. Oh okay, got it all right. And with that and the labor to take the door off and everything, 240.

well, that's okay. All right, that's not bad, but it's not cheap, but it's not. No, no, All right. and then a free lug nut? Yeah, I'll throw you one of my nuts for free.

Okay, 850 for everything. So my HHR SS with almost 200 000 miles, one of the rarest vehicles on the planet, and to fully service it and have it mechanically perfect is 850. Yep, you'll have smooth brakes, Your door will be fixed CV shafts will quit rattling and you'll have an extra nut. Well, okay, but there's nothing urgent because I'm very curious about the PT Cruiser thing.

So I think I'm gonna stall on this I I Know you really probably want this job and need this money. I mean you could take this to Johnny actually I'd be happy with that. Okay, oh well, he won't work on it yet, but we'll put this off a little bit. Hopefully you can still make your mortgage Okay, let's see if I can get by.

but um, I've got to line it up with the PT Cruiser Definitely Yeah, All right, let me call. Jake Thanks Wizard, No problem. Well I got a hold of Jake and he was 100 willing to line up these two Titans of retro hatchback things and uh, well, here it is in all of its Glory a PT turbo. but not just any PT turbo, this one's This one's been heavily customized.

It's uh, uglier than I Remember it? Jake hello hello, not you the car. So I just had this looked over by the wizard. There's a few small issues, just a few hundred dollars to sort out everything make it perfect even though it has almost 200 000 miles. And he did say this car looks like it will be an absolute joy to work on.

and they are so much better than the PT Cruiser in literally every single way. So you as an Enthusiast for these, an owner of one I figured we'd be a balanced in journalistic and give you a chance to defend it. So uh, defend yourself. Okay, well here's the thing.

he's absolutely right. Okay, so you've done some work on this and uh, we've done a lot of work to this. The transmission's been out multiple times. all the charge pipes gone through the vacuum system and it is a nightmare.

The engine bay is extremely narrow and Tall there's not a lot of room just changing the mid motor mount on the passenger side if you look at the um, well here, pop the hood. Some of the stuff we've done on this: when you look in the service manual step one of the procedure is remove engine. oh my. God it is.

Yeah, for the most part a Dodge Neon different transmission though, a jet drag instead of a new Venture gear which makes Parts availability even worse. Wow. Vacuum lines running absolutely everywhere the accessory, drive and timing belt are smushed right up against the frame rail, which made replacing those a joyous occasion. So it's a totally different world in in every way except their turbo retro throwback hatchback.

So really, oh my. I forgot. Yeah, this one's our skin deep. It's a lot nicer.

Yeah, well, this one's been customized to a degree. Oh yeah, that? Oh okay. Yep, that's the thing. Yeah, but uh, there is one cool part of this.

Obviously very rare for one of these to have a stick. I think less than half of. Well, I think a quarter of the HHR are stick the panel turbos, but yours is a manual transmission. So yes, a Hearst Short navigation.

yes, I retrofitted that that is out of a Chrysler Town and Country I believe. Well, how about that? So uh, you're a very enthusiastic non-enthusiast of this car. I I Really wanted one of these for a very long time and now that I've had it I I done with it I Don't want to touch it anymore. So I guess it's for sale.

It is definitely for sale. Yes, if anyone wants to enjoy all of this, how much? uh, make offer I Have no idea what they're worth? Well, first, we should probably line them up. not for paying sir. Maybe for Pinks? Yeah, 260 horsepower versus how much here.

Uh, so it's got an unknown tune, an unknown injectors, and why not? It is definitely tuned. but I that's as far as I know. let's hear it. Yes, that that is.

The one thing this car does really well is it makes some of the best noises. Straight Pipe cat that sounds like a Fiat 500 of Art that sounds way too much like a Fiat 500 apart? Yes, and that sounds very fast and furious. This might be a race here. Well, he may have a fancy manual transmission and a tune, an exhaust and that look.

but I have 260 horsepower stock and launch control. You ready? Sure I'll let you control when we go here. My horn doesn't work. Oh well.

then this horn doesn't work. So I'll have to do it all right. Ready One, two, three smoking me? Well how about that? Wow. I'm surprised it's slower than a PT Cruiser Turbo huh? Well, it's better in every way except for I Guess when it matters for a high performance car, the PT is faster I Never would have guessed that.

but I suppose this one's bone stock and there's definitely room to tune these engines. So on that note, thank you so much for watching! Need a rematch?.