As a commuter car, Chevrolet wagon excels

Wieck Media

The 2008 Chevrolet HHR SS Turbo Wagon, available in a panel version, has a maximum cargo capacity of 63 cubic feet and can be equipped to tow 1,000 pounds.

We spent an attentive week in the real world driving to work, shopping malls, banks, schools and medical offices. We also did spring cleaning, which meant hauling lots of wastefully purchased stuff to the dump.

"Attentive week" means we gave particular notice to what we were doing while not trying to do anything special, with the exception of remaining keenly aware of how we used the vehicle in question, the 2008 Chevrolet HHR SS Turbo wagon.

The idea was to see how automotive marketing and automotive journalism, at least that part of it related to product reviews, measure up to the reality of daily driving in a huge, perennially congested metropolitan area. Our verdict: They don't.

That is an anecdotal judgment, as opposed to a scientific one. It is based on the experience of two people, me and my wife, driving one compact, front-wheel-drive wagon in the Washington metropolitan area, mostly in its Virginia suburbs.

Our observations:

--Horsepower is irrelevant in tightly congested traffic. Our turbocharged, 260-horsepower, front-wheel-drive HHR SS moved no faster than the lower-horsepower automobiles trapped with us.

--A stylistic throwback to the 1949 Chevrolet Suburban, the HHR SS is nobody's darling in tight curves, where it must be handled gently and with some forethought. But it doesn't matter, because there aren't that many roads in the Washington area that allow drivers to safely "take curves" the way it's done in TV commercials and on test tracks.

--The HHR SS excels in its design- intent milieu, city-suburban schlepping. It's the perfect commuter, big enough to carry five adults. With its rear seats down, forming a nearly flat load floor, the wagon can carry lots of junk, enough to fill 63 cubic feet.

--The HHR SS has excellent straight-line ride and handling. It has acceptable handling in curves, meaning the HHR SS will behave well if you approach curves carefully. Acceleration is good. As for head-turning quotient, the HHR SS is alluring in the manner of a well-armed small town that is also well-manicured, filled with churches and bereft of bitterness.

The bottom line: What we see in TV commercials and read in zoom-zoom product reviews is mostly fantasy. Some of us might have the wherewithal to buy a super-performance car. But hardly any of us driving in metropolitan America will have the opportunity to exploit its full potential.

That being the case, a four-cylinder wagon with a little get-up-and-go and a lot of personality would serve many of us just fine.

If you agree, take a look at the HHR with or without sporty SS trim.