The enduring appeal of the Chrysler 300C

The Chrysler 300C created a splash when it first arrived in 2004.

Its burly looks earned it cult status and long waiting lists. Today, it remains on sale albeit in updated form and is one of the dwindling number of saloon cars on sale in America. Time, then, to investigate the origins of the 300C cult and its ongoing appeal:

THE INFLUENCES: Bentley Arnage

Chrysler’s 300C was once often optimistically described as a “mini Bentley” – usually by somebody selling one. But actually it’s not that mini at all, being just 50mm shorter than the Arnage that triggered the thought among those wishing they could afford the real thing.

THE INFLUENCES: Rover P5B

Nor was a Bentley its inspiration, although it was a British car that influenced its creation, and a British car featuring a wood and hide interior at that. The car in question was the Rover P5B. Trevor Creed, Chrysler’s British design chief at the time, remembered the P5B he used to borrow from his dad when he was young, filling its ample seats with mates to cruise Birmingham’s mean streets.

DESIGN

You can see the P5B’s Midlands echo in the Chrysler’s shallow glasshouse, its fat, flat-planed side window surrounds, the emphatic shoulder line and bluff, big-grilled nose.

But the P5B was far from the 300C’s only influence. Chrysler’s famous high-end, generously muscled ‘letter’ cars from the 1950s – each model year saw the 300 advance along the alphabet – also inspired the well appointed, high-performance character of this car.

Handsome

The sizeable chrome grille and double-lens headlights were drawn from the legendary and rather startling 1957 300C (pictured). Unusually, the 2004 300C was a decidedly more handsome beast than its aged progenitor, and it’s not often that you can say that of a modern.

Hit

The man credited with fashioning these influences into Chrysler’s big hit was Ralph Gilles (pictured), today Fiat Chrysler Automobile’s overall design boss.

And what a hit it was. For a time it was the car to have in the US, and the accessory and tuning market was mad to supply planet-sized chrome wheels, fine-mesh grilles, knock-your-windows-out sound systems and Lambo-style scissor doors to 300C customisers.

Power

Rap star Snoop Dogg even rang then-Chrysler boss Dieter Zetsche (pictured) to try and get hold of one, such was the waiting list. Mr Dogg’s voicemail apparently said “What I gotta’ do to get that brand new 300 up outta’ you?” It seems he got one in the end.

The base 2.7-litre V6 wasn’t so great for hauling all this jewellery, but the 5.7 and 6.1-litre Hemi V8s could supply all the rumbling surge needed, while Europeans could avoid the V8’s octane hunger with a stout, fuel-sparing Mercedes 2.7-litre turbodiesel.

The Mercedes connection

Chrysler scored plenty more points with its decision to switch from front-wheel drive to rear for its big saloons, a move enabling it to cherry-pick hardware from the parts bin of the company owning it back then.

Which was how the 300C got to use the sophisticated multi-link rear axle of the Mercedes E-Class, as well as its five-speed automatic transmission. It was one of the few areas in which Daimler boss Jürgen Schrempp’s “marriage made in heaven” between Detroit and Stuttgart actually yielded a little industrial nirvana. Or common sense, at least.

Capability

The result was a comfortably capable car and, if you went for a V8, a fast one too. And the 300C spawned a wagon too (pictured), though in the US this was branded as the Dodge Magnum.

The future

By American standards, this Chrysler was quite a step forward. In other markets, its edge was dulled by higher prices, some low-grade interior fittings and the slightly disappointing truth that it was less exciting to drive than it looked, even as an SRT8. 

But never mind that; this was a machine sharp enough to carry Chrysler through a sea of troubles as it navigated firstly being dropped by Mercedes and then near-death at the hands of the Great Recession - and into the unlikely embrace of Fiat.

Lancia

The 300C was substantially facelifted in 2011, an event that - in conjunction with the Fiat tie-up - gave birth to the Lancia Thema (pictured), a model that was sold in Europe between 2011 and 2014. The 300C was dropped from the UK when Chrysler closed its doors in the market in 2015.

Today

Today, the 300 has largely retreated back to North America, where it continues on sale, shifting 46,593 cars in 2018 in the US. Selling the best part of 1000 cars per week isn’t bad going today, especially for a saloon, but is a far cry from its 2005 heyday, when it sold a cool 144,068 examples. And it now represents essentially half the current Chrysler model range, strange to say.

Its production continues at Brampton, Ontario, but for how much longer? Rumours suggest the sun will set on the 300C in 2020, and with the way the saloon market is, we doubt it will be replaced. The car surfed a fashionable noughties wave for burly saloons, but is now being washed away by another one: the market’s love for the SUV.

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