How Rare Is A Chevy SS? Here’s How Many Units Were Made

Rarity in the automotive market can be difficult to define. At one extreme, there are limited-production hypercars that have all been reserved by collectors before the press release even goes public. At the other, there are classic cars that attain rarity simply by surviving for decades after release. Somewhere in the middle, there are vehicles from the recent past that weren’t produced for long because there was just not that much demand, sometimes due to bad marketing.

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The Australian-produced, Holden-derived Chevrolet SS was one of these cars. A total of 12,924 were made for model years 2014 through 2017. The SS was the brainchild of Bob Lutz, who became product vice-chairman of GM in 2001 and was charged with adding some Pontiac-style “excitement” to GM’s lineup.

Lutz’s first attempts at this were for the Pontiac brand. The earlier Holden-derived Pontiac GTO had a brief three-year model run (2004-06), while the G8 (2008-09) was a victim of Pontiac’s bankruptcy.

The Chevrolet SS was very similar to the Holden VF Commodore, with not much changed beyond the badging, dual exhausts instead of quads, a modified rear diffuser to match, and suspension calibration specified by Chevrolet. The SS offered either a six-speed manual (starting in 2015) or a six-speed automatic. With the exception of some exterior colors, full-size spare, and a sunroof, everything else was standard. Notable performance-related enhancements included dual-mode exhaust and a limited-slip differential. The 2015 model added adaptive suspension with Magnetic Ride Control and four-wheel Brembo brakes, with 19-inch wheels arriving in 2016. 

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The conclusion of Chevrolet SS production coincided with the end of manufacturing operations at Holden’s Australian facilities. While this assured the overall rarity of the Chevy SS, it also meant you could break down which of the car’s 12,924 units were rarest, and potentially most desirable, based on the variations in features over its short production run.

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The 2014 SS model lacked a manual transmission or four-wheel Brembos, so it’s the least desirable. There were only 2,645 manual-transmission cars made from 2015-17, making the 20% total of stick-equipped Chevy SS cars the rarest by mechanical specification. Cars built without sunroofs (543 of 2,645 sticks, 1,058 of 10,279 automatics) are another rare subset. The 2016-17 cars with the larger 19-inch wheels add another aspect of rarity, too. 

One final element of rarity for the Chevrolet SS is the exterior paint color. While most Chevy SS cars were painted Phantom Metallic Black (4,789 or 37.1%) or Heron White (2,272 or 17.6%), there were some very rare colors. These include the 2015-only Alchemy Purple Metallic (61 or 0.5%) and the 2015-16 Jungle Green Metallic (78 cars or 0.6%). 

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By these standards, the rarest Chevy SS would be a 2016 manual-transmission, non-sunroof car in Jungle Green Metallic with the 19-inch wheels. Current stats for the Chevrolet SS on Classic.com show a decent supply (at least eight unmodified cars for sale), with a price range of $28,000 to $53,100 for unmodified Chevy SSs sold over the past year.