BUYING USED: 300C SRT8

Here’s a great Mopar alternative to HSV and FPV in used-car land

ARRIVING Down Under in late 2005, the original 300C came standard with plenty of choice. As well as the sedan or station wagon thing (from 2006 onwards), you could get your 300C with a range of different engines.

There was a 3.5-litre V6, which did the job (but that was about it), and even a turbo-diesel. The oiler was a 3.0-litre V6, and, while it was torquey, its biggest claim to fame was fuel economy of around seven litres per 100km on the highway. Then, of course, there was that lovely Hemi 5.7-litre V8. The engine was a castiron, two-valve pushrod deal with a 9.5:1 compression ratio, so it’s right up a true street machiner’s alley. It made 250kw at 5000rpm and 525Nm of twist at 4000, although, despite the badge, it’s not actually a true hemispherical design. The techier bits included a fuel-saving cylinder-on-demand thing where the V8 became a V4 at light loads.

But there was more to come. If you kept your powder dry until April 2006, you could swagger into your local Chrysler showroom and leave in a model called the SRT8. That got you even more kit but, more importantly, a muscled up version of the V8, now with 6.1 litres of capacity, and some tougher hardware to go with it. That included a forged crank, lighter pistons, stronger conrods, a 10.3:1 comp ratio, and the cylinder-on-demand deal was dumped. The important numbers were now 317kw at 6000rpm and 569Nm at 4600.

Other SRT8 goodies included 20-inch rims and four-pot Brembo brakes. Lovely!

Any bitching was mainly focused on the interior, which, despite being built in Austria, was done to meet US expectations. So the plastics were hard and brittle-looking and the actual assembly was on the crook side of average. Sure as hell didn’t stop people buying them, though.

THE Series II was a mild update. Inside was a revised instrument cluster and centre conosle, although the end result still trailed Holden and Ford’s offerings of the time. But there was some extra fruit on offer, and the SRT8 got adaptive cruise control, which you either love or hate.

The big visual news was a new boot lid and revised tail-lights but, ultimately, the car still traded on its streetwise looks, so Chrysler was careful not to lose the flavour of the thing. On the safety front, the main event was the addition of frontside airbags incorporated into the front seats.

The 5.7-litre version got variable valve timing in late 2009, but that was more about driveability and fuel economy than outright power.

IN THE middle of 2012, the 300C was replaced by the 300 (no ‘C’). A lot of the original architecture remained, but the re-skin was significant. Chrysler was careful not to water down that in-your-face style of the car, but rather smoothed out and modernised the look.

The interior was given a total makeover, with goodies in Srt8-spec including 19-speaker audio, touchscreen display, and real carbonfibre trim.

The wagon bodystyle bit the dust and the 5.7-litre variant was dropped for the upgrade to 300, so the only V8 version in town was the SRT8. But even that had grown to 6.4 litres, taking power out to 347kw at 6100rpm and torque to 631Nm at 4150. This made it a real mover, capable of high 12s over the quarter.

The cylinder-on-demand thing was back for the SRT8, but drive one now and you can sense the pots dropping in and out, so it’s not the can’t-feel-a-thing system its makers had intended. There was also adaptive damping with Sport and Automatic settings.

In April 2013, Chrysler Oz introduced the SRT8 Core. By pulling out gear such as the adaptive cruise control, Harman Kardon stereo, leather seats, sat nav, reverse camera, and the heated and cooled cup holders (say it ain’t so!), Chrysler managed to chop a full $10K out of the price tag and deliver a stripped-out hot rod.