First Impressions:
Inside:
Very clean interior with very elegant feel. Lots of room, but doesn’t feel impersonal. The DVD entertainment console fits cleverly into center arm rest with space for headphones and a remote. Elegant display and control panel, with simple knobs and obvious locations. The instrument panel is also very clean and sophisticated. They definitely have retained the value of this car while not over-doing the SRT8 hype. That is, except for the stitching in the leather seats.
Outside:
Very unassuming, for this car at least. No loud badges or overt screams let on that this car is much more serious than the base model. The paint is a beautiful silver with metallic flakes. It’s still as aggressive looking as all 300Cs.
I drove around the city and got out onto the highway for about an hour today. It’s surprising how wide this car is. So far when parking I’ve either been very close to the curb, or about a foot away. Also, with the very high body, and short window height, it makes seeing out the back very difficult. I found when backing up this afternoon that I had no idea where the trunk or rear bumber was, as they are completely invisible from inside the car. But that’s backing up, driving this car forward makes all of those thoughts go away though.
When you step on the gas, there is a split second pause, then a tremendous roar from behind and you are immediately shot out into whatever lies ahead. Corning while accelerating is also very enjoyable and the car tracks incredibly well considering its significant weight. Almost all aspects of driving this car forward is rewarding. I noticed going over small bumps and even speed ‘humps’ in my neighborhood that the car was smooth and quiet. However, in the midst of an aggressive corner, it stays stiff and refuses to roll around like you’d expect from such a heavy, smooth-driving car.
Overall the visibility is great, and changing lanes is no problem, but there are definitely issues at certain times. During right-cornered on-ramps the rearview mirror seems to be placed directly in the line of sight of the where your eyes naturally try and see the road, and considering the low window height, there isn’t much room to look around it. I think this would have been a time to reduce some of the luxuries and gone with a simpler mirror rather than a larger one with auto-dimming features. Also, the left A-Beam is directly in the line of sight for left-turning on-ramps. Interesting, It wants me to stay off the freeway… I did have the fortune of actually needing to pull off the freeway today, and pull onto the shoulder. I got a call that was very important, but didn’t want to try and drive this car amidst freeway traffic. So, I pulled off. No big deal. Then I realized I got to pull back on. The traffic was slight, but I did not waste this opportunity to go from 0-65mph as quickly as possible, and it was a most satisfying acceleration.
This car is a bit of a bear in parking lots. It’s hard to see behind you when backing up, and it is very wide and demands a full-size space. It also gets a few head nods as you pull in though, and that’s always appreciated. I’m not sure how many people recognize, nor comprehend, the SRT-8 emblem, but those that do immediately show a little more respect for this car. I’ve also had my neighbor come over a few times and remind me that we’re “gonna have to take it out for a drive this weekend.” So it definitely passes the macho test with the guys.
I really liked the interior and instrument panel, although I had a hard time keeping the temperature at the right level, and even at the lowest setting, the fan seems to be blowing way too hard. I almost always chose to roll down my window versus getting blasted by the fan at the Low setting. I wouldn’t return the car over this, but it is a little annoying to be dealing with an issue that is reminiscent of my inexpensive first car while inside a $50k Chrysler. Seems like that shouldn’t be an issue.
Overall the car handled all the small tasks around town pretty well. However, I had to fill up with gas once, and the pump just kept pumping. Note: the car only takes premium gas. I’m not much in the habit of buying premium since my last car wasn’t really very fast at all, so it was a bit of a shock to pay the extra while also filling up a much larger tank than I’m accustomed to. 17.5 gallons. I also only got about 245 miles on those gallons, so not much to brag about in the terms of fuel efficiency. However, I never really even tried to keep my foot out of the gas. It was too fun to stomp. Maybe I should only blame the car a little.
I will note that almost across the board, men responded very positively to this car while most women remained uninterested or unimpressed. My wife thought it was nice and comfortable, but never really mentioned it beyond that. $50k for girls to not pay attention is a lot of money… Just a thought.
Afterthoughts:
Once this car went away and I found myself in a smaller car I was appreciative of how easy it can be to navigate a parking lot or narrow city street. However, that replacement car was never as much fun on the highway, and never gave me a reason to risk a speeding ticket. While the 300C had issues with visability and gas guzzling, the design and performance did not leave you wondering why such sacrifices were made. 4.5 stars.
Album: 2006-Chrysler-300C-SRT8
