Chrysler’s Forgotten Sedan That Blurred The Line Between Luxury And Muscle
The Chrysler lineup sure looks pretty thin at the moment. Meaning, of course, that it currently offers the Pacifica minivan, albeit with a recent facelift, and, well, that’s about it for the moment. Don’t expect it to stay this way forever, but there was once a time when Chrysler offered one of the best bang-for-your-buck four-door sedans in all of North America. Heck, it was even decently popular in Europe for a little while. Now that it’s been gone for a few years, it’s easy to forget how, at one point, it offered a performance bargain trim as well.
Chrysler in the 2000s: A Lot of Bad, With a Few Gems
Looking back on it, it’s fair to say that Chrysler was set up to fail long before the turn of the millennium came around. Just two years before the year 2000, Chrysler and company entered a strategic partnership with Daimler-Benz to form the ill-fated DaimlerChrysler AG. At the time, the move was touted as a “merger of equals” between the two companies, one that would see Mercedes-Benz hardware shared across the range of Chrysler products, even if Merc themselves saw Chrysler hardware as “lower-cost,” to put it lightly.
As we all know with the benefit of hindsight, any conjecture labeling the two sides of the merger as equals was a complete load of bovine excrement. It was Daimler that was in charge of the operation every day of the week, twice on Sunday in all likelihood. It meant that Daimler, not Chrysler, held the final say in what Detroit’s third biggest automaker designed, developed, and put into mass production. On the bright side, that latent Mercedes architecture would come good in at least a few respects. On the Jeep end of things, now an independent operation within Chrysler, its development team was free to co-develop the WK2 Grand Cherokee alongside the W166-series Mercedes M-Class.
It was a 4×4 that, ironically, wouldn’t debut until years after DaimlerChrysler went you-know-what’s-up in 2007. Still, on the Chrysler side, the Daimler partnership would bear fruit on a far more expeditious timeline. With the rear suspension, five-speed transmission, plus the rear diff and axle from a W211-series E-class, Chrysler had a solid foundation to bring back an iconic nameplate after years on an altogether different platform. When they did so, they accidentally put the entire Chrysler brand on the back of a four-door sedan that’d last for almost 20 years.
The Archetypal Chrysler Sedan Reborn
The Chrysler 300 nameplate is one of those cars that comes and goes, seemingly at random intervals, and usually when the brand is in a desperate panic to bring something new and exciting to the table. Its roots stretch back to the mid-1950s, and in dual-quad 331 HEMI form, it is sometimes touted as the first true muscle car. The non-letter-series 300s were a mainstay of the Chrysler lineup through the 1960s, with a very brief cameo in the late ‘70s. More recently, the LH-based 300M shared a platform with the Dodge Intrepid, and the automotive curiosity, the Eagle Vision.
In a vacuum, the front-wheel-drive 300M wasn’t exactly a bad car, but it simply wasn’t anywhere near on the same level of performance to any of its rivals. Be it the BMWs and Audis the 300M attempted to undercut, or domestic fare from rivals like Lincoln or Cadillac, the 300M was all sizzle and hardly any steak. It was a problem DaimlerChrysler was eager to solve with the follow-up, simply called the 300. Penned by the eccentric designer Ralph Gilles, the new 300 was big, boldly styled, almost like a Bentley on a budget, and packed the choice of a V6 or a 5.7-liter HEMI V8 as its two mainline powertrains.
For the speed freaks mixed in with the luxo-barge lovers, the SRT-8 trim offered a shot of adrenaline with a 6.1-liter HEMI making 425 hp and 420 lb-ft of torque. Loaded with leather and old-school charm, the LX-series 300 was the anti-Beamer, a stark contrast to the complete technological overload that German and Japanese luxury barges turned into in the mid-2000s. Still, as far as non-tech-related refinement was concerned, the LX 300 wasn’t exactly a spaceship. In 2011, the now Fiat-backed Chrysler group unveiled a redesigned LD-series 300. Along with the usual V6 and 5.7 HEMI fare, the second-generation modern 300 packed one of the greatest Mopar engines this side of a Hellcat.
Chrysler 300 392 (SRT-8), the Ultimate Chrysler Sports Sedan
Starting in 2012, Chrysler began offering a beefier 6.4-liter, 392-cubic-inch variant of their HEMI V8 engine as an exclusive feature for the all-new 300 SRT-8. For three glorious years, the engine helped elevate the already popular 300 into a truly aspirational vehicle, one that cranked out 470 hp and 470 lb-ft of torque. With traditional rear-wheel drive, this two and a half ton behemoth could sprint to 60 mph in 4.3 seconds with a quarter-mile run in the low-to-mid 12 second range. It was a respectable figure compared to far more expensive, tech-heavy rivals like the BMW M5, Mercedes-AMG E63, and the Cadillac CTS-V.
Of course, all three of those were better performers on the whole, but at the cost of being as much as 20 to 30 percent more expensive as a consequence. With an MSRP of $47,995 in 2012, it was a sacrifice 300 SRT-8 owners were all too happy to accept. Cruising down the highway at 70 to 80 mph, the car was surprisingly similar in character to the 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 family hauler the SRT-8 is based upon. Add a 19-speaker audio system, higher-quality leather than the old LX 300’s trim, and adaptive suspension with four-piston Brembo brakes, and these performance-minded Chryslers were far from the drab straight-line dinosaurs they were often typecast as.
Surprisingly, Chrysler’s decision to discontinue the 300 SRT-8 wasn’t down to raw sales data alone. Instead, FCA set about realigning the brand’s identity toward something far cushier after the 2014 model year. All the while, the company was dead set on preserving as many HEMI 392s as possible for other vehicles, like the Dodge Charger, the Dodge Durango, and the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT. It was an unfortunate but ultimately wise decision on Chrysler’s part, as the 392 carried on in production long enough to cameo in the Jeep Wrangler of all things, starting in 2021. At the same time, the standard 300 carried on for nearly another decade post-2014. It was long enough for the car to reunite with the 392 HEMI one last time, before the car was phased out for good.
One Last Hurrah in 2023
Fast forward to the early-to-mid 2020s. Chrysler’s under the control of its third major consortium in 25 years via the Stellantis group, the 300 is on the brink of going out of production, and the Mopar faithful are blessed with a celebratory special edition that brought back the SRT-8 in all but name. Now packing 485 hp, a 15-horse bump over the old SRT-8, there was even more fun to be had behind the wheel. Limited to just 2,000 units in the United States and a token 200 units in Canada, the 2023 300C 392 was a signifier that, even if they don’t show it all the time, if ever, Mopar does throw a bone to the fans every once in a while.
Paying homage to the classic letter-series 300Cs of old, the final example rolled off the production floor on December 9th, 2023, missing out on a 20-year-flat production run by a mere few months and change. It was the end of one of the most beloved 21st century love affairs in American automotive history. Now, with Chrysler’s lineup looking so barren these days, don’t be surprised if Stellantis reaches back to the nostalgia trigger one more time, and at least brings the 300 nameplate back once again. Stellantis, we’re all waiting — please don’t disappoint us.
Source: Chrysler, Stellantis
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