It went wrong just after the front wheels

Uh, it was butt ugly.
I only saw a few around, but most of them were driven by balding middle aged men trying to reclaim their youth.. and for the price of that thing you could actually buy a proper sportscar!
ewww.
Good Riddance…

I don’t believe the SSR was unattractive… quite the opposite. However, I don’t think my thoughts on this are shared by many. Barring looks, I feel the quality of materials inside was a little sub-par for a car of that price. All-in-all and neat idea that, like many other GM vehicles, didn’t receive it’s due engineering.

Ummm, it was $40K for a slow, heavy, unpractical truck.

The SSR was cool but impractical. The interior was subpar, the steering wheel, like all GM cars was too big and the cowl shake when the top was down was insane.Nice try but stop reinventing the wheel and deliver the Camaro to market.

Start with price…should have been 30k.
Interior was horrible-cheap plastics, loose parts, bad seats.
Impractical Bed, and no truck-like towing capacities.
Powertrain…4sp auto in a 45k niche vehicle?
Suspension…Trailblazer platform…enough said.
They should have done a modern Nomad. 2 and 4 dr versions with some practicality, with some 70’s Wagon traits like good towing capacity, etc. 70’s Wagons for all the crap they take were just as versitile as todays SUV’s and anyone over 30 knows it. Heck todays SUVs ar just those wagons made unsafe by putting them on stilts.

I don’t think it was ugly, it was supposed to look like a customized 50’s truck and it did, hence the “older” guys attracted to it. Just like the Prowler, which I think was an even worse execution of a cool idea. Unfortunately, I don’t know many (any) people who love 50’s pickups. I know 100’s who love Nomads.

sorry..this got long.

……..Perfect His/Her’s blue hairs: Prowler and SSR. The problem with most of this retro crapus is that it’s 2/3’s size.

The style may be OK, but who with half a clue would drive around in a Nomad station wagon that looks like it should have a pole in the center and go round-n-round.

……and WORSE: How about them ‘beautiful’ Mini and PT Converts. You gotta be a real assh_le to want to fleece the customer bad enough to build that dreck.

jim

The lack of a stick in the original introduction and the smaller engine were game stoppers up front for the street rod crowd looking at this as a potential daily driver in the warm climates or summer up north. It got better as it went along but again the price was in the Corvette range for something that was targeted for a niche market. As with the Camaro of old dealers did not stock them and potential buyers could only look at pictures. I personally like the vehicle and will keep my eyes open for one on the used collector market in a couple of years, yes I will only be looking for a 6 speed….

The SSR… where to start, with the 5.3L V8, pathetically slow, horrible milage, terrible handling (All due to the fact that it’s a truck using a truck engine) As has been said they promised at least the 6.0L when it was a concept and then we ended up with the Aluminum block 5.3L, which still confounds me to this day. Why was it on a truck chassis, with no truck-like payloads or towing? Once the LS2 got shoved into it and equally important a manual transmission (WHY DOES GM STILL USE 4-SPEED TRANSMISSIONS!!!?), admittedly did get a lot more appealing, but even then it’s not as fast as a late model Z28 ‘maro. The coolest thing about it besides the extremely noticeable styling had to be the multi-piece, vertical stowing retractible hardtop, which was impressively compact while stowed. The bottom line… This should never have been put into production, but it was still much more interesting than anything GM (other than the Vette).

Cater to the new generation. Bring something fresh and new that makes sense. Get some new blood in your engineering departments and toss out the old blood that keeps forcing re-gurgetated models from the past onto unwanting consumers. Be innovative, be consistent with your build quality and replace all senior members from the top on down. In fact, claim bankruptcy as it is GM’s only way out in the long run. Build quality should be consistently excellent from the entry level models up to the top just like the three asian giants. The secret to a successful business: “constantly evolve according to the times and listen to what your customers want at the same time not building a Homer Simpson Mobile.” In fact, claim bankruptcy and start with clean non-unionized slate. Or, get taken over by an asian giant. The choice is clear.

It should have shared and been based on the HHR which would have priced in the same price range. Chevy was late introducing a retro styled vehicle and need to look foward. Think Green.

And you wonder why Chrysler didn’t build the Dodge Sidewinder V-10 truck back in 1997….LOL

whats wrong? it starts with the first word in its name….chevy

just like the GTO, Pontiac introduces a crappy car, fixes it two years later, and by that point nobody cares for it.

What was the point of the whole thing? The interior was cheesy and nasty, the bed was useless, and the handling was pretty awful. The last one I drove had the LS2, which made lots of hot noise and tyre smoke, but I’d rather have it in an actual car, or an actual truck – the SSR is neither.

It’s like the Isuzu VehiCross or the Prowler – put out a wacky concept, public goes “Oooh!”, execs decide that means demand and make it, public goes “We didn’t say we actually WANTED one”, execs are left with a big hole in their pockets, scratching their heads. Yet again.

Ford already proved – with the Blackwood – that trucks with unusable beds don’t sell.

um, we could start off with the love it or hate it relationship most people carry when asked about it. there was no need for it, the automotive industry was not in the market for a convertible two seater truck with an LS1/LS2 in it. that may have been a hit in the 1950’s, but things have significantly changed.

Neat concept but there’s really only a few folks that wanted to pony up the bucks for what was essentially a chop-drop-top El Camino . . . ditto on the details of what most of the others wrote above. P.S. Does anyone notice the Envoy XUV is gone too?

If the styling were toned down so that the vehicle were more like an El Camino instead of a halo car, I’m sure it would have had more success.

As an aside, I like how they took the skylines of Detroit and Los Angeles and fused them together in the background of that image. But I have a hard time understanding why automakers always make it blatantly obvious in their commercials or print advertisements that the backgrounds are shot in Downtown L.A. At least omit the Library Tower or something so it just looks like some generic American city. And change the leaves on the trees so they don’t always look like blatantly Californian trees.

If I had 45K burning in my pocket and the choices were an SSR or a Corvette its a no brainer; the ‘Vette’ all the way. And to think GM killed F-body development and the SSR is what they came up with instead. Not only was it way too expensive but if I recall it had little to no optionability – just like the GTO – “here you go, pick a color and move along, we’re GM, we know what’s best for you”. Looks to me like a lot of people said “Here you go GM, here’s my middle finger, enjoy.” And to think I’ve got 5 GM cars in my garage.

it looks like a twinkie on wheels and it is so impractical and it cost a lot. I thought they discountinue this two years ago.

here is a poem i made up:

45k you say?
why not buy an SLK?
Its a much better car
It looks like an SLR
The hardtop is better
It doesnt look like a grocery-go-getter
The SSR looks like a twinkie
The SSR can go 0 to 60 in the time of a…winkie
Even in vibrant yellow
The SSR looks mellow
The SLK is fast
And the SSR didnt last

Oh i messed up. I said the SSR can go 0 to 60 in the time of a winkie(It rhymed). I meant the SLK.

compare the Super Silly Rig to a ‘63 El Camino, inside and out (an E/C even got 15 mpg with the 283!) … What the hail happened between original conception and final design to doom this product? Whatever happened, that’s what’s wrong with GM, in a yellow nutshell.

it’s ugly. it’s like that joke about shaving a dog’s butt and telling it to walk backwards…you get the idea.

mediocre power + high price = no sell

I saw a sketch or a concept that was an SUV based on the SSR and that was pretty cool, I thought. The SSR itself though…well it’s gone for a reason.

GM didn’t build it because THEY thought it was a good idea, they built it because WE thought it was a good idea. They brought out the concept and we went crazy for it, it looked so good, how could it not?

The SSR was a victim of two things: 1) it looks better in 2D (print and computer screens) than in 3D (real life) and 2) GM ruined the execution. I don’t know what it is about the design, but it just looks ridiculous next to you in a way that just doesn’t happen in photos. Then with the construction, the concept looked like a 40k vehicle, crisp lines and metal trim. They brought it out as a 30k vehicle and didn’t lower the price.

70k cdn
weighs the same as a silverado ss
0-60 8 seconds?!

all show no go.