2006 Chevrolet SSR Is Our Bring a Trailer Auction Pick of the Day

• The Chevrolet SSR convertible V-8 pickup truck is one of the highlights from an era obsessed with retro styling.

• In typical GM fashion at the time, the first SSR looked good but had tepid performance. This later version has a 6.0-liter LS2 V-8 pumping out 390 horsepower and a six-speed Tremec manual to stir up those horses.

• With four days to go, bidding for the online auction sits at just $16,000.

When automotive archaeologists pen the chapter on the early 2000s, they’ll wonder if there was some kind of rift in the space-time continuum. All of a sudden, the roads were full of pseudo-1930s, ’40s, and ’50s machinery, from the Chrysler PT Cruiser to the Ford Thunderbird to the Plymouth Prowler. Few of these throwbacks were actually good, but they were at least fun. And when it came to reimagining a 1950s hot-rod pickup for the 2000s, General Motors (eventually) got it right. Today’s pick from the Bring a Trailer auction site—which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos—is this low-mileage Chevrolet SSR, in the ideal specification.

Chevrolet first showed the SSR as a concept at the Detroit auto show in 2000. It was styled by GM’s Andre Hudson and the go-ahead to build a working prototype was given by Ed Welburn, later GM’s global head of design. SSR stood for Super Sport Roadster, and the vehicle brought some much-needed excitement to the show. At the time, the Camaro was just two model years from a long pause, and bow-tie enthusiasts wondered what would replace it.

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The SSR wouldn’t, but it was fun nonetheless, and the public clamored for a production version. Inspired by the 1947–1955 “Advance Design” pickup trucks, it was a street rod available at your local dealership, ready to line up at the dragstrip and . . . disappoint.

The 2003 SSR looked and sounded the part but, like the Plymouth Prowler, was more show than go. The 5.3-liter Vortec V-8 made 300 horsepower, but with its Chevy Trailblazer underpinnings and power-folding hardtop, the SSR clocked in at a portly 4700 pounds. Imagine putting a grand piano in the trunk of a Corvette. Quarter-mile times were nearly sixteen seconds.

But hold your boos, because GM took the criticism to heart and heated up their factory hot rod with the 6.0-liter V-8 the original concept had promised. When Car and Driver tested this improved version in 2005, we came away feeling a wrong had been righted.

The combination of this engine and the six-speed tranny gives the SSR some rabid bite to go along with an already hairy bark . . . GM should have put a bigger, more powerful engine and a manual transmission in the SSR right from the start.

Now with 390 horsepower at 5400 rpm and peak torque of 405 pound-feet at 4400 rpm, the SSR romped to 60 mph in 5.5 seconds and through the traps in 14.1 seconds at 100 mph. That’s more like it.

Even better, whereas the SSR initially was a four-speed automatic only, there was now an optional six-speed manual gearbox. Never was $815 better spent than equipping GM’s concept-come-to-life with a meaty shift action as satisfying as wielding a steak knife.

This SSR is one of these later versions and has just 2900 miles on the odometer. That’s not so low that you can’t enjoy it as a weekend cruiser in the summer, a use for which the SSR’s limited practicality would be well paired. There’s a small ding to be attended to, but the silver exterior and black interior otherwise present well.

As a quirky machine from an oddly backward-looking time, the SSR is certainly a conversation starter. Fitted with the best possible powertrain, this one’s got the driving experience to match its looks. Don’t let it get away—rifts in the space-time continuum only come along every so often.

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