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e warned you about this last month. Now it is this month. Damned if there isn’t an HHR SS turbo isn’t out there squealing and banging on our door right now. We’re only allowed to look. There’ll be no touching until sometime during the last quarter of ’07. That’s the official forecast, but you really gotta hand it to Chevy. When we tested the HHR Panel a couple of months ago, we more or less demanded that they put the turbo motor in it or drape their faces in shame. Ask and you shall receive (once in a great while, at least), or so it might appear.
The HHR is the latest deb to splice into Chevy’s SS conga line. Quite honestly, we don’t see that all such SS creatures are worthy of the runes, but this little gem makes a lot of sense in terms of flat-out fun, economy, and practicality. We’re slobs for usable interior space because we got lots of emergency trash to haul around with us or we don’t feel covered. Ever since were post-rug rats in the ‘50s, a station wagon was a permanent part of the McGonegal fleet. We still can’t get enough of them it seems. Then there’s a motor that produces a phenomenal 2.1hp/ci. Fuel mileage and manners of a V8 of this magnitude would doubtless be atrocious. The HHR turbo should pull down a minimum of 20/25 and cut our monthly petrol allotment by half.
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Why should we like the SS? Because it’s got all the good stuff going for it right now. Thank the Solstice/Skye turbos for that. The HHR is embedded with an FE5 suspension pack that was developed at the Nurburgring, where it set a lap record for its class (previously the property of sistah Opel). Based on struts, the chassis carries 23mm front and 24mm rear anti-sway bars, 225/45R18 tires on 7.5-inch wide rims, and all-wheel disc brakes: 11.7 inch vented, front, 9.8-inch solid, rear. So equipped it is claimed to achieve a lateral acceleration of 0.86g.