The short lived 2007-2011 Chevrolet HHR Panel Van is an interesting footnote in the madness of bankruptcy-era GM. Following in the steps of Chrysler’s successful PT Cruiser, GM’s retro competitor went without the imaginative interior. No one was exactly sure whether the HHR it was based on was a tall wagon, a large hatchback, or a short crossover when it debuted. Fittingly, it was styled after the 1947-1953 Chevy Suburban which similarly blurred genre boundaries between truck and station wagon. In fitting with the retro theme, Chevy brought back from the grave the wagon based panel van. Our featured vehicle today, sadly residing in a junkyard, is the rare quarter panel version.
The standard HHR panel van did not merely block off the unneeded windows to form a van. The window openings were fully filled in with additional sheet metal. The most controversial modification these vehicles received was the deletion of the exterior doorhandles, ensuring the front part of the cargo compartment was as inaccessible as possible. To make up for the inconvenience, the model got additional ‘Panel’ badges to go along with the its retro looks.
The standard panel van’s interior modifications included plain door cards and a storage bin in place of the rear seats to ensure a flat load floor. These doors can be opened from inside with an awkward backwards reach; however, it’s no worse than the contortions required for a car without central locking. Deleting the exterior doorhandles seems to have been primarily an aesthetic choice rather than an ergonomic one.
The HHR Panel’s main selling point was its retro styling. By the time the 2000s had rolled around, the few minivan based panel vans were on their way out. The slow selling Dodge Caravan Panel had forgone the flush sheet metal of the the 90s models (shown here) and had gone for simple opaque window inserts. This cost cutting only made the unpopular minivan-based cargo vans even less fashionable. These vehicle may have been more efficient than a full sized van, but they weren’t any more stylish.
Despite the trendy retro styling, few businesses found the HHR Panel’s cuteness to be valuable enough to buy one. Even fewer wanted the rare quarter panel option. It’s easy to see how this compromise had limited appeal. You have all of the drawbacks of limited visibility without the copious sheet metal for branding or increased cargo capacity.
With the distinctive red color, HHR branded tape stripe, chrome roof rails, and quarter panel option, this is an exceptionally unusual spec. If you had to transport valuable work gear that could tempt thieves and haul kids around in the same vehicle, an HHR quarter panel would be a great compromise. But I don’t think we’ll see a similar factory treatment applied to any vehicle again, wagon or otherwise, for a long, time given current market trends. It’s just too niche of a use case.
The HHR Panel was an interesting footnote, filling a nearly nonexistent market niche. I have a feeling the fabulously rare HHR SS Panel Van will become a future classic. Only 216 were produced and it is sufficiently bonkers to show up in all kinds of internet listicles. I doubt the ordinary panel vans or these confusing quarter panel anomalies will attain the same legendary status.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Capsule: 2007 Chevrolet HHR Panel – Ice Cream Truck
My hat is off to the HHR. Got one as a rental during the summer in Fort Lauderdale when it was 95 degrees in the shade. However, the A/C was ice cold!!
Can’t say that with today’s cars.
As I recall, the HHR shared many components with the Cobalt including suspension, platform, and maybe even dashboard layout.
When i worked at a delivery business the owner saw the pt at a new car show and bought 2 Chrysler’s. Thought they were cool. I prefer the 50s style over the 30s style… Although the PT did have a neat turbo convertble version.. Love the hhr
I still see an HHR on the road now and then (that red seems to have been a popular color), but I never knew about the Panel Van, and wonder if I’ve ever crossed paths with one.
I recall its detractors calling it the “Me-Too Cruiser,” but I never rode one, and have little experience with Chrysler’s trend-setting “PT-C,” so can’t really compare the two.
Perhaps I will indeed live long enough to see Panel Van prices rise, and full-dress restorations underway ……thanks for today’s writeup!
The HHR may not have been groundbreaking, but it didn’t have to be to be pretty good. A medium sized family wagon with a crossoverish seating position and retro styling was a good idea then and it’s a good idea now.
The sole way the HHR innovated on the PT’s formula was its commercial variants. The quarter panel I featured is much darker than the already scarce regular panel vans.
While you mentioned that the HHR was Chevy’s answer to the PTCruiser, you neglected to mention that both vehicles were DESIGNED BY THE SAME GUY! Bryan Nesbitt penned the PT first while at Chrysler and then GM scooped him up and he was assigned to draw Chevy’s own answer to his first design.
^^^Oh, wow, I had no idea—-thanks for being my teacher today!
I was totally unaware of this fact. That. . . sort of makes sense now.
If only they let him have more creative freedom with the interior. The all black modern drabness doesn’t pair well with the striking retro exterior. At least they should have offered some fun colors inside as well as outside.
While I don’t want to own one, I admire the dedication to the theme the PT Cruiser carried through its design. There weren’t many retro craze cars that also had a fun interior.
By GM standards, these special variants cost little to design and tool up, but they are typical of GM’s “Let’s throw something at the wall and see if it sticks” approach, at a time when it was teetering financially. Profit on these was doubtful.
These are one of the many answers I had to yesterday’s question about “Which cars did you covet…?”
Design-wise, I thought they were fabulous. But I was aware that underneath the skin these were basically a Cobalt, a car that had a pretty poor reputation. So I coveted from afar.
Saw my first HHR quite recently they never sold here but as usual somebody just had to have one a bright yellow ute version, panelvvan? I didnt even know they tried, got it wrong too, Aussie car makers did that to utes for decades I owned several branded Holden and Falcon, access to stuff that slid to the front was always a problem if the headboard panel was still in them, so the extra doors arent a bad idea why didnt they just hide the exterior door handles like on Nissan Terranos from the 90s?
I hadn’t realized there were 2 different panel HHRs, but why not offer the halfway version?
It’s odd that the crossover/SUV craze started at the large (Bronco/Tahoe/Wagoneer) end, when the extra height gave proportionally much more interior room at shorter wheelbases. Or was it more of a evolution of the 80s minivan craze?
It makes sense from an assembly line perspective that it’s little extra effort to make the normal wagon with the window delete. But it doesn’t from a marketing perspective. Who exactly is this half panel version for?
It’s for delivery drivers. Driving a vehicle in an urban setting without a right side rear window is less than ideal unless one is experienced in driving trucks that don’t have one. It’s the reason so many commercial vans did or do have windows in the right side sliding door. I was much happier after I added one to my Promaster. Backing out of a driveway can be especially challenging as it’s almost impossible to see if there’s cars coming.
In fact, my guess is that this version was more directly aimed at delivery drivers whereas the full panel was more towards those who wanted it for the looks. The lack of the outside rear door handles is absurd; how are you supposed to reach the items you’re delivering curbside?
Surely the panel van would have sold better if they had not gone through the trouble of deleting the exterior door handles. It is a deeply confusing choice.
Bryce Bryce Sheep Shagger Bryce…mate you truly are a deadset drongo. Sounds like you’re talking about the Chevy SSR pick up, similar styling themes, totally different vehicles. Yet another example of you commenting on topics you have no idea about, how’s about you just read the articles and leave the comments to those that actually know what they’re talking about.
Our commenting policy does not allow for personal attacks, but since you’re actually quite right I’m making an exception this time. You’ve spared from having to say it. I just ignore them all…
Almost got into an HHR SS about 15 years. I was looking for a FWD turbo automatic that had some utility. From what I remember, the quality was not that great.
Some years back I received an HHR as a rental car “upgrade” on a trip through upstate New York. It was adequate but undistinguished, and I was initially annoyed that it didn’t seem to have any kind of cover for the cargo area. As I was unloading my luggage the first night, I realized that the plastic tray covering the cargo floor could be lifted out and slotted in over the cargo area to form a shelf. I think the PT Cruiser also employed a similar setup.
I like the full panel one, I guess I don’t watch enough media as I can’t recall seeing even one advert for and of the three versions .
Paul’s quite right about blind spots, I was a truck drive in my younger years and when the rig belonged tome it always got extra mirrors, fish eye and regular .
The closing compartment where the rear seat went is a nice touch .
No exterior door handles nor inverted easy to read from in front ones like taxi cabs used to have would have been a simple solution .
-Nate
I rented an HHR once and enjoyed driving it. I was really impressed with the large cargo area for our luggage and the gas mileage was great. I still see the panels on the interstate quite often. There is a major fire alarm company that bought a fleet of them and still operates them.
CC Effect today: Saw a full panel HHR at Home Depot today. It was white and looked to be in good shape.
The Effect must have been strong. I also saw a minty HHR today although not the quarter panel model. It was in a nearby college town and driven by a young lady. Perhaps a family reserve car donated for college wheels. I had not seen an HHR for some years.
Had one as a rental upgrade in 2011. Tucson to San Francisco. Other than rubbermaid maid aspects of some interior bits, we liked it.
Was surprised how well it rode and handled. I gave it a work out on the way to the Sonoran Desert Museum. It handled bumps and humps as well as my wife’s Peugeot 306.
A printing company that I contracted with had one of these panel HHRs. I asked them about it and seemed it worked well for their smaller, in-town deliveries. It was white, festooned with their over-sized logos and was quite hard not to notice it on the road. They also had an older (’49-’53-ish) Chevy pickup decorated similarly. It was parked in their devil strip that was used for things like the local Christmas parade but otherwise functioned as an additional sign advertising the company.
Regarding the lack of door handles on the panel wagon variant, I believe it adds a bit of security to the truck, less ways to get to the interior. I didn’t ask the printing company if they even used those doors, but I would think they would be useful at times