2004 Chevy SSR

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It's surprising, considering that Chrysler and GM are in the same town, that GM didn't learn from the Plymouth Prowler episode. When GM decided to kick up some custom retro mojo, it commissioned the Chevy SSR, an awesome-looking hotrod pickup truck with composite body panels and a slick convertible top. Alas, the chassis and mechanics for the SSR were borrowed from GM's corporate midsize SUV program, making the putative performance machine heavy, underpowered and unforgivably lazy. It was no more hotrod than Britney is the next Helen Mirren. In the next couple of years, Chevy amped up the SSR but by then the credibility was gone. The SSR also violated a principle of hotrodding. Hotrods are homemade subversion of the existing order, mechanical folk art. There is no such thing as a factory hotrod. Seems obvious, in retrospect.

2003 Hummer H2

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One struggles to think of a worse vehicle at a worse time. Introduced shortly after 9/11 — an event whose causes were tangled in America's unquenchable thirst for oil — the Hummer H2 sent all the wrong signals. It was/is arrogantly huge, overtly militaristic, openly scornful of the common good. As a vehicle choice, the H2 was a spiteful reactionary riposte to notions that, you know, maybe we all shouldn't be driving tanks that get 10 miles per gallon. Not surprisingly, the green-niks struck back. A Hummer dealership was torched in Southern California. The H2 was also a PR catastrophe for GM, who happened to be repossessing and crushing the few EV1 electric cars at the time. It all contributed to GM's emerging image as the Dick Cheney of car companies.