2004 Chevy SSR Review - A Factory Built HOTROD!

this review has been made possible by Chevrolet of Naperville as you know Chevy has tons of brand-new cars and trucks available for purchase but did you know that they also have a remarkable selection of used cars head on over to Chevrolet of Naperville calm and look through hundreds of used cars for sale right now all right what's up guys my name is Zack and today I am driving a 2004 Chevy SS our upfront is a 5.3 liter v8 and down below is a four-speed automatic transmission now this is by far one of the weirdest cars I have ever driven it looks weird it drives weird it it's just everything about this thing it's just so flippin weird and we'll talk about that in a second but let's get back to that 5.3 liter v8 well it makes a decent amount of power 300 horsepower and some good torque 335 but the later two years the last two years of the SSR you could have gotten a 6 liter LS to 6 liter ls2 v8 that that's amazing that's really really cool 5.3 liter v8 you guys know it it picks up it picks up it's not fast I mean you really have to think about it this is pretty much a Chevy Silverado engine it's not the fastest thing in the world however it's quick and it makes a good noise I think that's the biggest thing is that a turbo v6 would have worked very well in this car even even just a regular v6 but it doesn't have that old-school hotrod grumble and we'll talk about that hot rod Ness later I think this has a v8 strictly for the sound and for the fact that it says on the window sticker v8 those are the two reasons this has the v8 like I said paired to it is a 4-speed automatic transmission but the later years you could get a six-speed manual now I really wish I could drive if anyone out there has an SSR with the six liter with the six-speed manual I would love to drive that because I feel like that would definitely change the dynamic of the car however driving it right now I don't mind the four-speed I'm not loving it I'm not you know over the moon with it but it's fine it does the job you know it is what it is last but not least of course the SSR is rear-wheel drive so let's talk about the interior we have a lot to go through and then we have a lot of exterior to go through it's just a lot of truck to go through let's be honest here so in front of me I have three main gauge pods on the left is my tachometer and the center is the speedometer and on the right I have my coolant temperature my fuel and my oil pressure on the steering wheel I have volume and seek on the right and on the Left I have my information icon so I do get a little screen at the bottom of the gauges that will give me a bunch of different information about the car display units automatic locking I mean your trip odometer fuel mileage all that stuff is down at the bottom of that Center gauge so left of me I do have my head light switches dimmer switches things like that and on the door I don't have anything except for my mirror controls which is a tiny little thing I like the look of the door it's very interesting to say the least in the center I get a radio that is straight out of a Corvette or Camaro or really any other GM product from the late 90s early 2000s I do a cd-player which is a nice feature for the year but that's about it then I have my climate control options I like that a lot fan controls hot cold things like that and then down below all of that I actually have three different gauges so I have my battery voltage pretty standard I have G pH which is essentially gas mileage I guess and then I have transmission temperature which is nice but I don't imagine towing anything with this and that's more so a feature for cars that tow a lot then we have the shifter now I like the feeling of the shifter the button on top is a really solid click in the gear I think it's great it really does feel good however the actual shifter itself is not labeled and no they did not rub off the buttons or anything like that it's straight up not labeled so the only way to tell what gear you're in is looking up on the dash at the PRNDL it'll have a little light under which gear you are currently in so I really wish they would have just labeled it I guess it looks clean I guess it does look good but and down at the bottom I have a couple of different buttons so I have my window switches up and down that's at the upper left in upper right hand corner then I have traction control off lock it unlock and then in the center I do have my convertible top options now unfortunately this particular SSR that I'm driving the convertible top doesn't want to work it seems like there's a panel back there that's jammed and so it when it tries to unlatch but once it tries to move it doesn't want to move and this isn't my car this is a dealership car and so I don't want to mess around with it I wish I could show you guys the convertible top I wish I could experience the convertible top for sure but unfortunately I can't do so however we'll talk about that convertible top a little bit later when we talk about the exterior but let's get to these seats the seats have decently high bolsters they are leather they're nice comfortable I don't really have any complaints of them they are functional seats for this sort of application the seats are heated as well they are down on the left and right hand sides of the seats very hard to reach but it does have heated seats very nice option however I don't see this thing being driven in any snow anytime soon now we don't have back seats but we do have a trunk slash tailgate so we'll talk about that around the back Arthur on the back of the Chevy SS R and I mean where do we even start well we can start by popping the trunk little popper here on the key fob lift this up it does have hydraulics which is very very nice but that's that's as wide as it opens to fit your whatever needs in well we can put down the tailgate of course you actually have to reach in here and then you can pull this down that's just like a regular tailgate of a truck I do have these wood slats however they're just velcroed on and I would be shocked if those are real wood have a nice bag these are the SSR floor mats and this is the actual owners manual which is really really cool Chevy SSR and I'll leave that closed now you can use this as an actual truck if you want to because you could actually unbolt these hinges and just take this piece off which is pretty interesting and actually helpful you can actually tow stuff but the interesting thing is to then put the cover back up oh I do actually have a tiny tiny compartment I don't know you would fit like two pieces of paper in here I don't know why they have that in there but you can open that I guess which is neat but they do have this little sticker that says tailgate must be open before cargo cover can be closed so in order to close this close it like that and then you could bring this up from the back SSR man you never stop being weird now we have to talk about the looks this thing looks ridiculous it looks strange it's weird it's styled to look like Chevy trucks from the 40s and 50s which in theory is cool you know when I was a kid I grew up my grandpa had a 1931 Ford Model A and we actually still have that in our garage today I love that car it's great and I always thought as a kid why didn't they make new cars with the same old bodies why didn't they keep that old styling old cars look so cool everyone wants an old car that's cool why wouldn't you just keep that and just put modern technology in it disc brakes you know maybe a smaller turbo more fuel-efficient engine things like that I wasn't thinking that grand when I was eight years old but I was thinking why don't they make Model A's today and this the Chevy SSR is the exact idea coming to fruition about what would you happen if you made a car styled like it was 70 years old this whole truck is really for hotrod enthusiasts that don't want to buy a hot rod and have one built this is a out-of-the-box hot rod why do I say that well first of all the retro styling it looks like a modified old pickup truck it looks like they took an old old pickup truck and they added bigger fenders and smoothed out the body a little bit the rear end the rear taillights just those two little circles that's a pretty common thing to do too like Chevy s10 they moved the taillights to the very bottom I mean that that's like a mini truck thing to do those tiny tiny taillights this shifter looks sort of like a Hurst shifter you would buy aftermarket and stick into your hot rod convertible top or chop top hot rod sort of thing this is a hot rod that you buy and you want a nice AC you don't want to build it you don't have to go through the process of making a hot rod this is a factory hot rod that you could have bought from 2003 to 2006 I keep wanting to call us a car this is a truck it's weird I don't know and so Chevy made over 21,000 of these trucks in the three years they were not not a success I wouldn't call these a success however there's something so cool and unique and different that I like it in that aspect however what I don't like is the build quality in here I'm hearing all the plastics sort of bounce off each other and let click candy clanging sound no weird I don't like that I think the build quality in here is early-2000s GM build quality which let's be honest isn't the best in the world this particular SSR has 38,000 miles on it and it doesn't feel nice this doesn't feel luxurious however I could totally imagine someone who's a big Chevy fan this is their weekend car for a weekend I would love this thing for a day for a night cruise taken out to cruise night you know going to Portillo's or pre Kony's parking it up bringing your lawn chair sitting out talking about cars that's what this was built for this was not built for your business suit morning commute this was not built to get your kids to school this is a car show car this was built for cars and coffee this was built for donuts and chrome or whatever breakfast food and car park car show you want to bring it too no matter how stupid this thing looks no matter any event this is a cool car this is so cool and unique to the point where I was driving by the Chevy dealer on my off day wasn't even planning on filming or anything I called him up and I said hey I got a drive that SSR I I got a drive that SSR ASAP and I said all right come in and well the rest is history cars like this are always so fascinating to me and what I mean by cars like this is in the mid-2000s I'll leave a link at the end of the video I drove a 2004 Thunderbird which had the super retro styling red interior circle window retro cars like this of the early 2000s I'm talking the Thunderbird I'm talking the Plymouth Prowler if it's just such a funny time in the automotive world we were kind of in a good spot this was pre recession of 2008 but it was also post 9/11 where America was filled with pride and together feeling we haven't felt and last nineteen years we were happy we were drunk off of American pride we had the money so we built these weird weird cars and now today these are garage Queens and Car Show vehicles and I'm just I'm really happy I got to drive one the build quality is bad it's not fast it's just so different it's so unique and I'll bet you know I can promise you my talking point with my friends for the next week or so will be the fact that I drove one of these and that it's a convertible pickup truck my friends are gonna hear about this and I'm gonna tell the SSR story with a smile on my face well I hope you guys enjoyed the video huge thank you to Chevy of Naperville for letting me take out their Chevy SSR this thing is so cool it is for sale right now their information is up on the screen and linked in the description below please go check them out if you are interested in an SSR or any other Chevy product they have hundreds of used cars as well please go check them out they are absolutely awesome but I hope you guys enjoyed the video don't forget to rate the video comment on the video and subscribe like - take care guys [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Shooting Cars

Views: 15,675

Keywords: Chevy, Chevy SSR, SSR Pickup, SSR Chevy, Chevy Trucks, Chevy Pickup, weird cars

Id: hwdubpzTE-s

Length: 13min 49sec (829 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 20 2020