Muscle in on two great buys
A LEGACY: NOTHING DRIVES LIKE A SUBARU BUT THE CRYSLER’S V8 ENGINE IS BULLETPROOF
Before the market plummets completely, take a look at these two supercars.
It’s probably still going to be some time before you can just get out and about and go driving for the pleasure of it. And, sadly, when you do, you’re going to find second-hand car prices will have plummeted.
That might be a good time, then, to look at two semi-classic performance sedans which even now, before the bottom has dropped completely out of the market, can be had for not much money.
Chrysler 300C
This is a quintessential American muscle car – but only in the V8 versions. Forget about the namby-pamby diesel and 3.6-litre V6 petrol. The 5.7-litre “Hemi” (so called because it has hemispherical combustion chambers) is an American legend and in the base version, which arrived here in the mid-2000s, pushed out 250kW. That was enough to get the big, two-ton car to 100km/h in 6.4 seconds and on to a top end of just under 250km/h.
If that wasn’t enough for you, Chrysler later introduced the SRT8 models, which featured a bored-out 6.1-litre version of the Hemi, good for 331kW in its first iteration and 347kW in its most powerful form.
Chrysler specified the 100km/h sprint would come up in “around five seconds”. That was – and still is – supercar territory.
The main drawbacks of the American four-door sedan were the fact that most people would mistake you for a drug dealer or rap artist and the interior was, shall we say, Las Vegas chic. In other words, chintzy rubbish.
The ordinary 5.7-litre V8 would gulp fuel like journalists released from lockdown, but the SRT8 took excess to a new level. Its urban fuel consumption was quoted at about 20l/100km … or about four front of him.
Initially, the cars came in 2.0-litre turbo form, with the 169kW engine of the then WRX, but later iterations came with a 2.5-litre engine with twin-scroll turbo. At their peak, the cars put out 187kW, which was good for a 0-100km/h acceleration time of just over 6 seconds.
Being an all-wheel-drive, handling was out of the top drawer and the Legacy could show a clean pair of heels to many a faster car on the twisty bits.
You’ll have to look to find a good one – and that means having a full dealer service history – because these are not cars you can
fix in your backyard. Prices are all over the place, with many being below R100 000. And you won’t find this sort of performance at this price anywhere else.
The cars are quite expensive to maintain and can be thirsty, considering the turbo motors and AWD powertrain. But nothing else quite drives like a Subaru. And if you think the WRX is too much of a boy racer, then have a look at a Legacy GT.