In my ongoing effort to throw as many different things as possible into this blog to see what will stick, I now unveil my first ever Automotive Review!
The Chevrolet HHR, msrp -18,720, as tested - 240.00 for the week from Alamo with unlimited miles.
As soon as I climbed into the drivers side of the HHR I thought "wow, so this is what it feels like to drive a fantastically small shower stall." The center pillar was conveniently placed tight up against my left shoulder giving me that always comfortable wedged in feel. The roof line ended somewhere around the bottom half of my line of sight. I quickly realized if I were to see the road I would need to scooch down considerably in the seat and tip my head to the side. The right side, of course, thanks to the giant door jam that prevented me from moving my head left. I can't blame Chevy for this as at 5'11" I am well above our nations average height... by a whopping two inches. Ironically, HHR stands for Heritage High Roof. I don't think the drivers I came remarkably close to hitting due to the bevy of blindspots would have found that quite as ironic as I did.
On the plus side, this car is equipped with a whopping 155 horsepower to go with 4200lbs of curb weight. As you can imagine this vehicle has no problem going 65mph up most (but not all) hills. For every up hill there is a down and once gravity takes over, look out! This thing was down right zippy on the declines. There is a large amount of storage space. We were easily able to fit luggage for two people and a couple dozen bottles of wine in the back with room to spare. Also, we were able to park the HHR in all sorts of bad neighborhoods knowing full well that even the most desperate of car thieves would want nothing to do with stealing it. Not because of it's state of the art theft deterrent system (as far as I know it doesn't have one) but because the HHR is it's own theft deterrent. No one wants to be seen in an HHR.
Final Analysis: If you are renting a car from Alamo at the compact rate of 240 per week and when you show up they tell you they are all out of compacts but they have an HHR you could take for the same rate - wait around.
The Chevrolet HHR, msrp -18,720, as tested - 240.00 for the week from Alamo with unlimited miles.
As soon as I climbed into the drivers side of the HHR I thought "wow, so this is what it feels like to drive a fantastically small shower stall." The center pillar was conveniently placed tight up against my left shoulder giving me that always comfortable wedged in feel. The roof line ended somewhere around the bottom half of my line of sight. I quickly realized if I were to see the road I would need to scooch down considerably in the seat and tip my head to the side. The right side, of course, thanks to the giant door jam that prevented me from moving my head left. I can't blame Chevy for this as at 5'11" I am well above our nations average height... by a whopping two inches. Ironically, HHR stands for Heritage High Roof. I don't think the drivers I came remarkably close to hitting due to the bevy of blindspots would have found that quite as ironic as I did.
On the plus side, this car is equipped with a whopping 155 horsepower to go with 4200lbs of curb weight. As you can imagine this vehicle has no problem going 65mph up most (but not all) hills. For every up hill there is a down and once gravity takes over, look out! This thing was down right zippy on the declines. There is a large amount of storage space. We were easily able to fit luggage for two people and a couple dozen bottles of wine in the back with room to spare. Also, we were able to park the HHR in all sorts of bad neighborhoods knowing full well that even the most desperate of car thieves would want nothing to do with stealing it. Not because of it's state of the art theft deterrent system (as far as I know it doesn't have one) but because the HHR is it's own theft deterrent. No one wants to be seen in an HHR.
Final Analysis: If you are renting a car from Alamo at the compact rate of 240 per week and when you show up they tell you they are all out of compacts but they have an HHR you could take for the same rate - wait around.
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