Road Test: Chrysler 300C SRT8

For those who crave the pig iron thrum of old-school American muscle, you have only one new car to choose from: the Chrysler 300C SRT8.

It’s been my estimation for some time now that cars are getting far too complicated. Seven-speed, eight-speed and nine-speed transmissions; turbocharging for improved efficiency and overinflated power and torque figures; crumple zones and crash protection structures for Euro NCAP ratings and improved pedestrian safety, all add up to cars losing their way just a little bit. Granted, there is much magnanimous merit to a lot of what carmakers are forced to do these days, and that’s fine if you bought a Volkswagen Golf, but for the pure enjoyment of driving, the majority of these things simply get in the way.

Sure, modern cars are very fast and very refined but all this technical meddling gets in the way of response. Modern cars don’t respond quickly enough to the driver’s inputs anymore. If you want to get a wriggle on you need to stab the throttle pedal so hard that it kicks down five or sometimes six gears, and having so many gears means the ratios are often out-of-whack. Then the turbos need to spool up, then you need to turn all your driver aids into sport/track mode. By the time you’ve summoned all the mental elasticity to do all this, the opportunity you had to display your and your car’s driving prowess has passed you by. The Chrysler 300C SRT8, however, turns that sentiment straight on its head.

A normally aspirated 6.4-litre Hemi V8 with 347 kW and 631 Nm of torque, 0 – 100 km/h in less than five seconds and a top speed of 280 km/h, makes it a serious muscle car, probably the most muscly of the breed. I shuddered when I heard the Chrysler SRT8 had a simple five-speed automatic gearbox and what that would mean for consumption, but I changed that sentiment the moment I shoved my foot down and the SRT8 shoved off with bolting response. I’ve become accustomed (as have all the guys driving a variety of brand new cars) to the mandatory split second delay cars can’t help but display nowadays. So, you can imagine my delight when the SRT8 lit up its rear tyres as soon as my toe flexed one mm on the throttle. Sure its performance figures arrive on the peaky side of the rev range but five ratios paired with the normally aspirated engine means you’re never far away from accessing full dollops of both.

And then there is the way this beast looks. The Chrysler 300C SRT8 is the only authentic American muscle car you can buy new right now and boy does it turn heads wherever it goes. The styling is block-like and square and squat but along the rear and sides it’s been given the distinctive look like it’s been pinched by a transformer. It does look the business and I particularly like the rear three-quarter angle on it. Our test car had a maroon/red paintjob, 20-inch darkened rims, a characterful front grille and a refreshing ignorance of too much American chrome; something which is a common problem with most yank-tanks.

The interior is lavishly equipped as well. It has all the usual Bluetooth/USB nonsense but most importantly it has a heated steering wheel, heated seats, a display to show lap times, g-force, acceleration figures and, most crucially, adaptive cruise control so you can latch onto the car in front of you in traffic and have the most relaxed drive home of anybody on the road. That is something I was surprised by in the Chrysler 300C SRT8; the dual character it so easily possesses. It’s a comfy waft-mobile that turns into a Hollywood action hero with little more than a change of attitude from the driver. And when I say waft-mobile I really mean that. The big Chrysler rides so comfortably on the road and the cabin is so well shielded from wind noise and road noise it really can be thought of in the same category as big German saloon cars; perhaps even better in some respects.

When you pin the SRT8’s ears back it doesn’t blast forward like your more modern turbo cars, but the torque builds up in a linear curve so the performance is enthralling, in a word. The sound from the big V8 isn’t even all that loud but that helps create the duality mentioned earlier. Of course, being a muscle car, its main performance talents are to be found within the confines of straight lines. Despite all the effort with adaptive dampers, sport modes, track modes; the SRT8 isn’t the most dynamic or confidence inspiring car around the twisties. The brakes too; despite being big Brembo-looking-jobbies, don’t bite or slow the big bruiser down nearly as convincingly as you might want. The Goodyear tyres fitted to the SRT8, and all American cars in fairness, also probably don’t respond quite as well as other tyres brands. They feel a bit wooden somehow.

Despite these gripes, I still love the Chrysler 300C SRT8. In particular I’ve always loved the 1955 song, ‘Hot Rod Lincoln,’ arguably the best song about cars ever committed to vinyl and one that acts as a defining anthem for the hot rod community. ‘Hot Rod Lincoln’ was originally written by Charlie Ryan but later covered by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen in 1972. The song uses the location, Grapevine Hill, which is an old-time local southern California nickname for the long, nearly straight grade up Grapevine Canyon to Tejon Pass, near the town of Gorman, California, just south of Bakersfield. The great song delineates all that’s necessary to make a great American muscle car (listen to it below) and it puts me in mind of the Chrysler 300C SRT8 immediately as a great piece of pure, unadulterated, Americana.

Photography courtesy of Matteo Conti.

What we like…

• Interior comfort and standard equipment.
• Freight train acceleration from the big engine.
• Real muscle presence.
• Cheap price

What we would like…

• Someone to pay for the fuel bills, but hell, it’s a muscle car so who cares?
• If we were being nit-picky, a little more steering feel and dynamic composure

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