It isn't so much the styling, although I can't say I like the looks much. To me the grille is too in-your-face, and the high beltline I find to be particularly objectionable. It might be one of those things that grow on you though, so I won't dismiss it permanently like I did with truly ugly cars like the Aztek.
What really bugs me is the way D-C is beating this "Hemi" nonsense to death. Yeah, so the engine has hemisperical heads. So did the K-car's engine and hosts of other cars. That doesn't mean it's the fabled Hemi of yore. It isn't a pushrod V-8 of 426 cubes with twin 4-bbl carbs and stump-pulling power. It's just another modern engine that may or may not stand the test of time. I would think a lot more of D-C if they didn't undertake this attempt at fooling consumers who may have heard of the old Hemi but are short on specifics.
-- Greg Beaulieu snipped-for-privacy@chebucto.ns.ca Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
Only one K-car engine was a Hemi. It was in the early 80s, the 2.6L Mitsushitty engine. Unfortunately the engine was terrible.
I think the whole Hemi foolishness is just trying for the retro thing that all the car makers seem to be going after (PT cruiser, T-bird). Although I would tend to agree that the Hemi badging should be reserved for the higher performance engines, eg: SRT-X.
I know someone that rented a Dodge Ram 1500 with a Hemi. He said it had a fair bit of power, but nothing jaw-dropping. And he actually had people say "Hey, does that thing got a Hemi?"
The high beltline is the major visual flaw I have with the 300. Although personally I like the styling of the Magnum wagon. Plus I'm kind of a wagon fan.
These two cars should be rather interesting, as they are something different. They have low price base models that can compete price wise with Taurus, Impala, Camry, etc. so they have the affordable family car covered, yet they offer higher end models for people looking for a luxury car. I'll have to take one out for a drive for a better opinion, and hopefully they will have good reliability.
The new Hemi may not have the power of the old, but it aint bad. The 300c will do 13.9 in the quarter and it weighs more than 2 tons. That certainly compares favorably with a loaded b-body with the old Hemi.
Well, it IS a pushrod v8, and it DOES have (relative to other modern engines) pretty good stump-pulling torque.
So, did you get "bugged" in 1964 when Chrysler made a big deal about the
426 Hemi being a Hemi? After all, it wasn't "really" a Hemi since it had a tilted combustion chamber, unlike the REAL Hemi from the 50s. And the
426 Hemi was built using an RB engine block originally designed for wedge heads, not a block made for Hemi heads, it even had to have a goofy "up from below" head bolt in order to mount Hemi heads on the block. And what's with all that goofed-up plumbing it had to have just to get heat up to the carb area? REAL Hemis didn't need THAT stuff!. And after all, REAL hemis are no bigger than 392 cubic inches.
The first time I saw the 300 I thought someone misplaced a pickup truck grill. It's looks started to grow on me but I still didn't care much for it until I got behind the wheel. The car is comfortable, easy to drive, and the acceleration is amazing. Does it compare to a built
426 Hemi, not a chance, but then again the 426 didn't get 20 mpg and idle so quietly and smoothly that you couldn't tell it was running. In any case I wouldn't kick either one out of my garage.
No, it's not... thank God! The 426 had single digit fuel economy and just one of those old motors emitted more pollutants than a few hundred modern Hemis.
340 _NET_ horsepower and 390 foot pounds of twist isn't stump pulling? And these numbers are just for a big sedan. Wait until you see the new Hemi's numbers when DC drops it into a performance car/SRT product.
Get out of the 60s; come into the 21st Century. Modern engines are designed SO much better than the old 60's stuff. (Couple of examples: Other than a resto guy, know anyone with a 60's motor who'd use an old grind cam, or opt for old performance heads instead of modern stuff?)
Huh? It's exactly what they say it is... a Hemi.
I don't know what you're complaining about. The new hemi is the best V8 to ever come out of Detroit. (Note: The previous best was GM's LS1/LS6. We'll have to wait and see how their LS2 shapes up.)
The 300C gets a rather mixed review in last Sunday's Sunday Times (UK's leading quality Sunday with a circulation of about 1.3m -- pop. 55m).
Technically -- incl performance on the road -- not up to equivalent-engined BMWs. Audis and Mercs, nor is the interior.
But for the money GBP 30K, at least GBP 10K cheaper than the named rivals, well worth it. If offered as a company car, the reviewer would be delighted (note that company cars are still quite widespread in the UK, even among people for whom it is a perk, rather than a necessary work tool).
One point made is that the 300C is a new large car in an area largely abandoned by other manufacturers because of the introduction of SUVs.
To me the most significant info was that this car type was finally being offered in the UK. Maybe this means we will now see the whole Chrysler range offered here.
In a few ways, such as cam grind, air-flow efficiency, and fuel management. In MOST ways- such as assembly quality, materials, and long-term ruggedness, they're decidedly inferior.
I've been doing some pretty extensive 200,000 mile maintenance on my wife's modern engine (1993 3.5L v6). Its a great motor, for the most part, but its not going to last half as long as my 1973 318 (430,000 miles and still going), my 1966 383, or my 1969 440 Magnum. Too many design weaknesses. Plastic fuel rails that fail (in spite of the design change) and are now up to $317 for replacements and will probably be NS-1 in another 4 years. Lower intake manifold gaskets that fail (mine did last 200k, so I'm not really complaining, just pointing out that the design is weak) and are essentially a maintenance item- but that forces you to loosen and re-torque large bolts into aluminum threads, which will only take that process maybe 2 or 3 times before failing. The oil pump rotor seals against the front surface of the block, so when wear gets too great the ENGINE BLOCK has to be replaced.
I love that 3.5 and I love the Eagle Vision it came in because its light-years ahead of foreign crap like Toyota and Honda, but is it "designed SO much better than 60's stuff?" Not even CLOSE to as good, let alone "better."
My ideal engine would be one with 50's era assembly precision (the first-gen Hemis were basically blueprinted from the factory according to machinists I know who have torn them down and measured them) 60's era attention to materials, replaceable wear items, and long-term durability but with modern EFI and emission controls. Oh wait... that would be a
5.2 or 5.9 Magnum... too bad they just went out of production...guess I'll have to settle for a 4.0 in a Jeep Wrangler .... but wait, it goes out of production in another year or so... :-( That just leaves the Cummins diesel, I guess.
Your memory and expirences are quite different from mine. I remember growing up in the early 70's when it was milestone for any car to reach 100,000 miles. I remember my friend who lived down the road whose family was big on Chryslers and owned a number of hemi cars. Within a couple years all the hemi car were traded in because they kept blowing up. I remember my Dodge 360 needed to be rebuild after it hit 70,000 miles. My oldest brother's '72 Chevy 350 was shot after just rolling over 90,000. And my other brother's '69 Chevy 307 was puffing blue in about 80,000, and his '74 AMC 304 needed new lifters about the time it hit 60,000. Yes, my expirences and memory recall the lifespan of engines in the 60's-70's being significantly shorter than the engines in the modern fuel-injected era.
Carter Thermoquads, Holley two-barrels, ballast resistors, water pumps, starters, and voltage regulators are just a few things I remember always failing on old Chryslers.
"Crap like Toyota" Huh? Toyota is, and has been for years, the automotive gold standard.
60's engine design was hit or miss, at best. Trial and error was the rule. In contrast, today's engineers using computer design can find an engine's weakness before they even build one.
Attention to material? Like the cheap vinyl they used in the interiors? Like the cheap chrome trim that peeled and/or pitted? Hopefully, the engine material they used WAS better than that, and much better than their atrocious attention to build quality.
The 318 was okay, but the 360 never impressed me. The 360 had a big sloppy crank, a weak cam, and crappy heads. Chrysler's best small block WAS the 340.
The only cars off the top of my head that cost what the HEMI model costs are pretty much base models. What's $30,000 USD get you in a BMW? (a decontented 3-Series), an Audi (A small A4 base model, maybe with AWD but no S4), Mercedes? (A vanilla C-Class 4-cyl turbo?)
While I like all of these cars, they're NOT "equivalent" price-wise -- especially with a V8 option.
-FPtM "Really hating the USD GBP Euro conversion rates.
That has its pro's and con's. On the one hand, you don't end up with one area way overdesigned and another area way underdesigned, so that things tend more to be moving towards wearout end-of-life converging to the same point in time, so maximum use of materials, minimum weight, etc.
On the other hand, it allows whatever design safety factor is now considered "unnecessary" (i.e., in the past, intentionally put in to cover the grey unknowns and unpredictable interactions) to be trimmed out resulting in lack of general robustness - i.e., any abuse or out-of-the-norm anomalies (i.e., water hose busts and it overheats causing major damage; a water pump failing can take out the timing chain and other components so that what used to be a $75 expense turns into several hundreds if not a couple of grand; everything is so compacted and integrated that the simplest of tasks in the "old days" is now very time consuming and expensive, i.e., a $10 gasket failure costs several times more than a corresponding failure on an "old school" engine due to disassembly/reassembly labor; etc.; etc.; etc.) resulting in costs approaching or exceeding the value of the vehicle, i.e., after 5 years, you're one otherwise minor failure away from scrapping the vehicle. If nothing happens, you're good for many years, but if certain otherwise minor component failures occur, the vehicle may be scrapped, or at least a significant part of its worth will be spent on repairs.
Bill Putney (to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with "x")
I said equivalent-engined (meaning engine size), so yes, the other cars are dearer by at least GBP 10 000 (USD 17 000) in the UK, where car prices are somewhat higher than in the US. BMW 545 and Merc E500 were named as the chief opposition.
Fortunately I just found the review online:
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In Europe, especially in the UK with its many winding roads, we have a particular interest in road-holding, cornering etc. Simple high acceleration is not itself sufficient to make a car well-performing. In any case, even 1.4-liter cars can go at 100 mph.
How much is the "average" car (or the 300C specifically) in the UK as expressed by the number of days that a person earning the "average" wage must work in order to buy the car?
Or more specifically, what is the ratio of the cost of a 300C in the UK and USA and what is the ratio of the average wage in the UK and USA?
Please cut and past that article here. A subscription is required to view it from that link.
I take it the 300M was an extreme rarity in the UK, as opposed to Europe in general (or Germany, Holland, etc). I've always seen a few
300M's in my European travels in the past few years (once in Amsterdam where it was a taxi).
Daimler, IMO, never had a good explanation as to why they didn't give Chrysler vehicles more exposure or marketing (or distribution?) in Europe (where cab-forward styling would give the owner some visual distinction among the visual banality of most cars). The 300M is a very distinct-looking car in Europe.
No Chrysler engine that I, my parents, or my grandparents owned between
1949 and today lasted LESS than 150,000 miles with one exception: the piece of VW junk in a '78 Horizon. Even the 1949 Plymouth Coupe that I own (originally my grandfather's car) has over 200,000 miles, albeit with an engine rebuild in 1964 (I have his receipts). Of course that engine doesn't even have a full-flow oil filter. Of those 20-odd cars owned, I can think of the following that exceeded 200,000 miles, plus a few Fords that will go un-named:
1) 1963 Valiant station wagon- slant six, wouldn't surprise me if its still out there running somewhere
2) 1966 Plymouth Satellite, 361 engine. May have only had about 190k when sold in the fall of '72 in trade for #4 below.
3) 1966 Dodge Polara (I still own it) 268,000 miles on a 383
4) 1973 Satellite with a 318 (I still drive it daily) 430,000 miles on a
318, minor overhaul at 200k miles.
5) 1983 Gran Fury (Dad's car, bought used from the highway patrol)
210,000 miles when traded in on:
6) 1992 Dakota (Dad's farm truck, 5.2L Magnum engine) 200,000 miles and (despite my bitching) he's never bothered to change the transmission fluid. Still plugging away.
7) 1993 Eagle Vison- 210,000 miles on a 3.5L v6, but will likely never see 300k.
The more important difference was 1960s era OIL. Take a '66 383, rebuild it BONE STOCK, and it'll run a half million miles when fed modern oils. And to a degree you are right that fuel injection is easier on an engine than a carb, especially in cold/enriched conditions where a carb can wash oil off cylinder walls. But I did already acknowledge the advantage of EFI.
Sorry, some of that is just dead wrong, and I should know because I drive a '73 EVERY DAY. I've replaced precisely ONE ballast resistor on my '73 since 1980, and maybe 2 voltage regulators (at a whopping $15 each). And the Carter Thermoquad I put on it 5 years ago hasn't been off of it since. And yes, Thermoquads ARE maintenance hogs- the Carter AFB it had before the TQ has never had to be opened AT ALL and would work perfectly if I bolted it back on the car today. I'm running the TQ just for grins, and it does give about 3 mpg more than the AFB.
Besides- the most expensive thing you named (starter) is still under $150, compared to >$300 for crummy plastic fuel rails on a modern car..
For "disposable cars" that is true. You can buy a Toyota or Honda and be almost 100% assured of getting 3-5 years and 100k miles out of it (although a Toyota may well need a new engine at 80k miles these days due to oiling failure). Try to keep it 20 years and >200k miles though, and its a lost cause. Massive organ failure at ~150k miles is a certainty. Planned obsolescence at its best.
Just because '60s engineers used slide-rules instead of laptops and 3D CAD workstations doesn't mean they couldn't predict and eliminate weaknesses. Its been my observation that heavy reliance on CAD has resulted in MORE lemon designs (2.0 head gaskets, Toyota sludge-monsters, head-destroying Ford 5.4L Tritons, GM oil/antifreeze mixing v6es, etc. etc.) than EVER happened in the 60s. Go ahead- NAME me a '60s engine that made it out the doors with a huge reliability problem like the Toyota sludgers...
For one thing, what engine parts are made of vinyl (since that's what we're talking about)?
And for a reality check, the vinyl on my '66 looks almost as new as it did nearly 40 years ago. Its the cheap interior plastic on the 93 that is already falling apart.
In whose dreams?? 60s chrome actually contained CHROME! In measurable thicknesses!
Your credibility is beginning to falter. The 360 has the SAME cam as the
318. And it used the SAME EXACT head casting as the late-production 340. And yes the 340 was by far the most POWERFUL Chrysler small-block, but it also used exactly the same forged 3.31" stroke crankshaft as the
4-bbl 273 and truck version of the 318. The 360 crank "sloppy?" In what way? It was built as a pseudo-big-block, and so it has a longer stroke and bigger main bearings than a 318 or 340, but how does that make it "sloppy?" It gives it more low-end torque than a 383, but hardly "sloppy".
You sound like you're talking about a 60's car. From what I've read the 300 is an excellent handling car. And if it's not the equivalent to Mercedes why not? It has an awful lot in common with them. By the way we actually have winding roads in N. America, go figure. I'd still like to know what engines you consider equivalent to the Hemi.
"Excellent handling" is also relative. Maybe not excellent in the eyes of the reviewer compared to other European (maybe some Japanese?) cars. I'll cut and paste the article in reply to another poster.
I have driven 'cross-country' in parts of the US and noticed some gentle curves in the 4-lane highway... :-) I admit that was in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, i.e. densely populated areas where there were no remote regions with miles and miles of narrow roads occasioned by little traffic. And I don't think I'd like to test performance in Valley Forge...
Why should a Chrysler be equivalent to a Merc? DC hasn't owned Chrysler for long and, anyway, there would, I am sure, be much opposition to wholesale changes done very quickly. Although I don't think these NGs are an accurate reflection of the general populace it is still instructive to observe the comments made about Chrysler changes and about Merc. It seems to me that there is a lot of criticism about many of the changes introduced by the current management. There are issues of how people (Americans in particular) perceive Chrysler as was or is, and what DC is doing to it. I feel for some in this NG their opinions are influenced by 'nationalism', i.e. this great American company has been taken over by those blasted foreigners, German no less.
As regards the value of the 'Hemi', I am not an expert but I would have thought that the discussion about that earlier in this thread was quite informative. There was something in a similar vein in the BMW NG recently. I don't think many really care what the engine is called or what its shape is, so long as it accelerates well, especially from 50 - 70 mph, makes an attractive sound (or is quiet, personal taste) and the gearbox (manual or auto) performs satisfactorily. Oh, and fuel consumption is an issue for many Europeans (hence popularity of diesel).
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