It is not just the end of the line for the 300 sedan – which Chrysler has just announced will be retired after the end of the 2023 model year. It may also – by dint of that – be the end of the line for Chrysler, too. For once the 300 is gone, the only remaining Chrysler model will be the Pacifica minivan.
You can’t maintain an entire brand – or dealer network – on the strength of just one model. Especially if that model is a minivan.
Maybe there will be new Chryslers coming. But none will be like the one that’s about to go away. And that’s very sad.
But the good news is it’s going out with a bang.
What It Is
The 300 C is a last-hurrah version of Chrysler hugely successful 300 sedan, which almost singlehandedly revived the brand in the early 2000s, when it first appeared. It was the first rear-drive, V8-available Chrysler car since the very early ’80s. It was – and is – big, heavy powerful and brooding.
And people loved it.
They still do. But Chrysler has been forced to stop building the car – along with its Dodge-badged siblings, the Charger sedan and Challenger coupe – because it is becoming too difficult (and too expensive) to insert these square pegs into the round holes of government-mandated fuel economy and carbon dioxide “emissions” standards without fundamentally changing them into something entirely different.
Which is exactly what is happening – as regards the Charger, at least. An electric one is coming, even though the market didn’t ask for one. So there may be an electric 300 coming, too.
But it won’t be the same. And arguably, it won’t be a 300 – electric cars having nothing in common with the cars that bore that name up to now.
Unlike this last hurrah.
Which comes in the person of the 300 C – the letter denoting, as it always has in this context, the most muscular version of this broad-shouldered American heavyweight. It will be the first – and last – 300 to be powered by a 6.4 liter version of Chrysler’s mighty Hemi V8 engine, essentially the same engine that is available in the R/T versions of the Charger and Challenger as part of the “392” package – the latter number denoting the size of the big V8 in American cubic inches rather than metric liters.
It will be made in limited numbers – only 2,000 of them will ever be produced – each with a base price of $55,000. This is about $15,000 above the base price of a standard-issue 300, equipped with a V6 engine and actual transaction prices – what people pay to get one – are apt to be much higher as these are, truly, the last of the line and shall never pass this way, again.
What’s New
The C package – with the 6.4 liter/392 cubic inch V8 engine as its centerpiece – is a new (and final) option for the 300.
What’s Good
- The last big American sedan you can still buy new.
- The biggest-engined version of this sedan, ever.
- Certain to appreciate in value.
What’s Not So Good
- Is already appreciating in value. Expect to pay full MSRP plus a lot more than that.
- Only a relative handful will be built.
- Being forced off the market.
Under the Hood
Last year, the biggest engine you could get in a new 300 was the 5.7 liter version of Chrysler’s might Hemi V8. There was no C version of the 300 last year.
This year – for the final year – the C makes a brief return. Under its long (and wide) hood is a 6.4 liter version of the Hemi, which is the biggest version of Chrysler’s (modern) Hemi. It is bigger than the more notorious 6.2 liter Hemi V8 that makes 700-plus horsepower in the Hellcat versions of the Charger and Challenger, courtesy of a supercharger that more than makes up for the lesser displacement.
But the 6.4 is not lacking in the horsepower department, either.
This last-of-the-big ones makes 485 horsepower – far more power than the smaller 5.7 liter Hemi, which summons a comparatively modest-sounding 363 horsepower. The 6.4’s power is also a lot more power than the grand-daddy 426 Hemi of the late ’60s and early ’70s, which powered a handful of the quickest and fastest Chryslers, Dodges and Plymouths of those times – as some will remember.
That Hemi, interestingly, was a race car engine Chrysler detuned and installed in a few of its street-production cars to qualify for use in race cars. It was not an easy engine to live with, being fundamentally a race car engine. And – by the standards of the 392 engine – not a particularly impressive performing one.
Most Street Hemi (as the 426 Hemi was known) Chryslers, Dodges and Plymouths from that era got to 60 in the mid-high five second range, which was extremely quick 50-something years ago, especially in relation to the average car-of-the-time’s ten-plus seconds to 60 timeslip (about on par with a new Prius).
The 392 Hemi get the massive – and massively heavy – 2023 C to 60 in 4.3 seconds and through the quarter-mile in 12.3 seconds, utterly blowing away its namesake ancestors. With the AC on.
And it gets twice the miles-per-gallon, too.
Official numbers weren’t available when this review was written in early January; however, we can get a very good idea of the Hemi 392 C’s appetite by referring to the appetite of its essentially-the-same sister vehicle, the Charger sedan, which carries an EPA rating of 15 city, 24 highway – the latter in italics to emphasis the astounding highness of that figure, for a car of this kind.
A ’70 Hemi-powered Challenger might make 15 . . . on the highway. If you kept the speed under 55. Anything faster and the car would be drinking premium at the rate of 8 or 9 miles per gallon, chiefly because in those days, high-performance cars had aggressive final drive ratios and did not have overdrive transmissions to compensate for them. Thus, the car was very quick – for its era – but its engine was revving much faster at much lower speeds than today’s high-performance cars, which do have overdrive transmissions, to compensate for their aggressive final drive gearing.
At 70, the 300 C’s engine is hardly idling notwithstanding it 3.09 final drive gearing. At 70, a ’70 Hemi Charger’s engine was screaming at something like 3,800 RPM. And that is a big part of the reason why it burned so much gas – while the new one (and last one) doesn’t.
On The Road
Americans – average Americans, not just the rich ones – used to commonly drive big, rear-drive cars like the 300. But such cars have been systematically winnowed from the showroom, chiefly via federal gas mileage mandatory minimums that big, heavy, rear-drive cars cannot easily “comply” with. The layout became the almost exclusive indulgence of affluent people who could afford a Mercedes or a BMW or a Lexus.
The along came Chrysler.
It alone had the audacity to re-introduce the kind of car average Americans used to commonly drive because they could afford to. The C version of the 300 isn’t that, of course – though it’s still a relative deal considering that $55k just barely buys you a four cylinder-powered BMW 5 or Mercedes E350.
But the as-it-comes 300 is. Same car, same layout. Same wonderful heft and commanding feel of the road. And that’s for $33k. The standard 3.6 liter V6 is also huge – compared with the 2.0 liter fours that you get in the $50k-plus BMWs and Benzes.
The C version of the 300 is a kind of ferocious last salvo. Think of the cornered Bismarck, hounded by practically every ship in the Royal Navy, firing her 15 inch guns until the barrels glowed red and the last shell was spent.
But there will be 2,000 of these prowling the open roads.
If you are among the fortunate few who get your hands on one, you will have the ride of your life in a car you’ll want to drive every day – which is not something you could say about the Hemi-powered Chryslers, Dodges and Plymouths that were available before the last Extinction Level Event back in the early ’70s. They gave you the ride of your life, too – but you probably wouldn’t want one every day. The price you paid for 426 horsepower was a choppy idle, easily fouled spark plugs and general unhappiness at anything less than pedal-to-the-metal.
The 485 horsepower C idles as smoothly as the V6. Does not foul plugs. Is very happy to just trundle along. In fact, it excels at the latter. It is better than the V6 in that department because of the combination of the always-available abundance of seemingly effortless power, accompanied by the deep-down bass rumble a V6 cannot produce. That rumble is comforting in the manner of the purr of a cat on your lap. But in this case, there’s a tiger under the hood.
It is so fast when called upon you hardly have time to realize just how fast it is. And this is made more enjoyable by the surreality of something as fast as this is that is as gloriously big and hefty as it is. Also as comfortable – in keeping with the tradition of C-badged big Chryslers. Some consider them to be the original muscle cars – but they differed from the latter in being . . . comfortable (and luxurious) as opposed to merely brutal and very fast.
This one’s both and if you get a ride in one you will have a revelation – about just how good we’ve had it. About how much better it might have been. And about what they are about to take away.
At The Curb
Americans loved – and used to commonly drive – big cars like this car because such cars are also practical cars. Unlike the general run of front-drive, downsized cars that supplanted them – and which are all gone now, too. Because they were impractical cars. Too-small in the back and especially the trunk, which couldn’t hold very much. This is why crossovers have largely replaced cars – and why Americans who want a big, roomy car like the 300 have moved into SUVs.
The latter is hilariously ironic in that the whole point of the government’s regulatory juggernaut against the big American car has resulted in the even bigger American SUV.
The 300 was – well, still is, for a little while longer – the last American car with almost as much spreading out room in the back (40.1 inches of legroom) as up front (41.8) inches and a properly sized 16.3 cubic foot trunk. It actually does “seat five comfortably” – some will remember the old ad jingle used by a Japanese car company whose little cars did not “seat five comfortably,” unless three of them were kids under 12. And you do not need another car to carry their stuff, either.
But it is the attitude of this car that has made it not only popular but iconic – and while it’s still available new. It lacks the angry Samurai/gaping goldfish/Cylon centurion face you see affixed so commonly to crossovers to make them look menacing.
The 300 just is.
In the manner of someone who knows he is – that he can be – and for exactly that reason doesn’t need to make angry faces. It is also elegant – almost limo-like – which is a function of its exceptionally long (120 inch) wheelbase, or the distance in between the front and rear axle centerlines. To put that in some context, the wheelbase of a BMW 5 sedan is only 117.1 inches and it is only 195.8 inches long vs. 198.6 for the 300.
What you are getting here, in other words, is an almost full-sized luxury sedan for less than the cost of a mid-sized luxury-brand sedan.
And that goes a long way toward explaining why the 300 has sold so well for so long. To put a finer point on that, the 300 has continued to sell well despite not having been “updated” since – wait for it – 2011.
Because you don’t fix what ain’t broken.
Unless you’re the government, of course.
The Rest
The C comes standard with pretty much everything that is optional in the lesser trims, except all-wheel-drive (which is only available with V6 versions of the 300) as well as features and amenities you cannot get in other 300s, such as a four piston Brembo brake package, performance-tuned adaptive suspension, “active” exhaust (it opens up under full throttle to let the Hemi breathe and let everyone hear it breathe) with black tips, an integrated decklid spoiler on the trunk lid and Black Laguna leather seats with silver stitching and “300C” accents.
Also standard are a booming 19 speaker Harman Kardon audio system and carbon fiber trim plates.
Chrysler is taking reservations for these last-of-the-line, going-out-with-a-bang 300s. If you’re interested, click here.
The Bottom Line
Cars like this will be missed once they’re gone. We took them for granted. And now they’re being taken away. Maybe, one day, they’ll come back.
After we stop taking such things for granted.
Eric Peters lives in Virginia and enjoys driving cars and motorcycles. In the past, Eric worked as a car journalist for many prominent mainstream media outlets. Currently, he focuses his time writing auto history books, reviewing cars, and blogging about cars+ for his website EricPetersAutos.com.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
