Thought I'd show a few pics of my project. 2006 1LT, all options except 2.4 and sunroof. This is what I call my "budget grocery getter". It was rescued from an insurance company who totaled it. The damage was really only superficial, but it did have quite a lot of dents, dings, etc. It was a theft recovery, and mainly had lots of stuff stolen off of it. Anyway, this is what it looks like to date, and my only future plans are leveling springs in the rear, and a set of black roof rails (have them but been too lazy to install). The grill was an experiment, and I'm still not sure if I'm 100% happy with it, but the jury is still out on that one. The best part of it is it only has 40K original miles on it, runs and drives like a new car, and to date my total investment is a little under 7K. The salvage title totally screws any resale value, but I plan to drive it, not sell it. What do you all think so far?

 

Looks really sweet, man!

 

X 2

 

I like it ! just clean looking

 

Hard to believe it was an insurance total, but looking very sweet now.

 

mmscuba, if you don't end up liking the grille, I would be interested in trading for a Bright Chrome Grille..

 

Looking sweet man!! But then again, I do have a soft spot for silver ones.

 

OK, cool, I'll let you know.

Thanks to everyone for the compliments! "Clean" is the word I'd hoped to hear, because that was my objective (well except for the bumper sticker )
Salvage titled cars can be a lot of bang for the buck, but you have to know what to look for. Structural/drive train damaged cars can be scary, because you don't know if they were rebuilt correctly. The rest is just sheetmetal, plastic and paint.

 

Need to see the before photos.. The finished HHR looks good.

 

Maybe paint the grille the body color silver,it might look better that way.Or try painting the outer band silver and leave the horizontal bars black.