In the 2000s, DaimlerChrysler created a sports car that on paper, should have been a smash hit. The Chrysler Crossfire blended art deco styling with solid Mercedes-Benz bones for what could have been another hot neo-retro seller. Instead, the Crossfire was trashed by the press and enthusiasts alike and sales fell off of a cliff quickly. The Crossfire might have been a failure back then but we think it’s a quirky used car bargain today worthy of a pardon.
There has been endless ink spilled about the comedy of errors that was DaimlerChrysler. We’ve all heard about the so-called “merger of equals” and less-often quoted is Daimler chairman Jürgen Schrempp, who called it a “marriage made in heaven.” One of the touted benefits of the 1998 merger was that mass-market Chrysler brand vehicles would be infused with the high-quality engineering of more exclusive Mercedes-Benz vehicles. This sounds like a situation where everyone wins, right? Chrysler gets better engineering while Mercedes tech spreads far and wide.
Americans got to witness the fruits of this labor from the Chrysler LX platform to the Pacifica crossover. Let’s take a stop at the LX platform, which underpinned such important cars as the Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger, and Dodge Magnum for an incredible 19 years. A shortened version of the LX became the LC for the Challenger. Motor Trend describes part of why LX cars are revered by their fans:
There’s plenty of Benz, mostly of the E-Class variety, in these large machines. The aluminum five-link rear suspension on all 300s is based on the E-Class design, but the 300 has a wider track and bigger wheels and tires, with a steel cradle in place of the E’s aluminum one. The 300’s 120-inch wheelbase is two inches longer than the E-Class’s and just one inch shy of the Mercedes S-Class’s. Its seating position is 2.5 inches higher than the 2004 300M’s, and its generous interior has lots of rear-seat legroom and headroom for six-footers.
Chrysler also spent 30 months and under a billion dollars scraping the Chrysler parts bin and Mercedes technology bin to create the Pacifica crossover, another high-tech ride. This one was received well and it managed to sell 393,471 copies over a production run spanning seven years. I’ve had the pleasure of being in a Pacifica and it was surprising in how elevated it was compared to other Chrysler products of the era.
Tom Marinelli, then the Vice President of Chrysler Marketing, said that the Crossfire and the Pacifica were pivotal moments for Chrysler:
“Without question, Pacifica and Crossfire mark a pivotal time in the 80-year history of the Chrysler brand.” “With a complete lineup of head-turning vehicles, our showrooms have never looked better. With the addition of Pacifica and Crossfire, Chrysler will now have some of the most appealing vehicles under one roof.”
So, what happened with the Crossfire?
The Marriage Bears Fruit
The above context is important because the first new vehicle to come out of the now-infamous merger was the Crossfire, a halo that was supposed to define the new era. The Crossfire was supposed to be a showcase of how German engineering and American design could, at least on paper, produce the best of both worlds.
According to a Car and Driver piece from 2003, the Crossfire wasn’t just a technical showcase of DaimlerChrysler, but it was also designed to be Chrysler’s answer to the Audi TT. The concept for the Crossfire was the brainchild of Eric Stoddard, who was then just 25 years old.
According to Stoddard, he was inspired by America’s Art Deco period and streamlined cars like Bugattis and the Talbot Lago. He combined those elements together in a vehicle with an extreme cab-rearward profile plus a boattail design. Stoddard also incorporated a central spine which carried the length of the vehicle, even splitting the windshield along the way. Stoddard offers more details in an old interview with Motor Trend:
“It’s intended to blend the youthful, sophisticated small sports look of coupes from Europe with the classic, powerful appearance of all-American coupes,” said Stoddard. “And it has to be a driver’s machine, nimble and agile. If [show attendees] see a car that’s international in appeal but distinctively American in character, we have a winner. The long hood emphasizes horsepower and rear-wheel drive. The expressive face, raking profile, and tapering rear glass give the Crossfire its American flavor. And its proportions and stance make it fit in just as well with some of the great small sports cars of Europe.”
As for that name? Chrysler offers an explanation:
The name “Crossfire” was conceived during the development of the vehicle’s distinctive character line which moves precisely and rapidly from front to rear. The character line “crosses” to a negative formation from a positive formation as it travels quickly from the front through the rear fender. Rear fenders are muscular and wide and conclude in the large, sculpted tail lamps. The side profile is complete with metallic-finished side air louvers.
If you’re having some big feelings about the Crossfire right now, Chrysler says that is the point. Designer Joe Dehner was tasked with the job of turning Stoddard’s striking design into something that could be put into production. Many concepts reach production as cars that only vaguely look like their concept. The Crossfire was not that as Dehner preserved Stoddard’s lines while translating them into a final product.
Speaking to Car and Driver, Dehner said the point of the design was “to evoke a strong, passionate, emotional response. We had to retain that. We want to polarize our audience—we want people to love it or hate it.”
Most of Stoddard’s design made it to production, with the biggest changes happening to parts that would have been impractical to put into production, namely the spine that ran through the windshield and rear window. Chrysler also had to change the concept car’s face to give the Crossfire its recognizable corporate look.
Reportedly, turning the concept design into a production car wasn’t as hard as it could have been and that was because of what was underneath the Art Deco sheet metal. DaimlerChrysler kicked open the door for Chrysler to dig into an expansive pile of parts from Mercedes-Benz.
It was also decided that the Crossfire needed to be built on an in-house platform. Thankfully, gaining access to the Mercedes-Benz ecosystem meant Chrysler found just the right pairing. The R170 generation Mercedes-Benz SLK-Class was about the right size and featured the kind of firepower Chrysler wanted under the hood.
Calling the Crossfire a rebadged SLK would not be fair, however, the Crossfire is said to share around 40 percent of its parts with the donor Mercedes. These parts include the R170’s chassis, engine, transmission, track width, wheelbase, and suspension. There’s so much Mercedes-Benz in the Crossfire that you could even put Mercedes seats in the Crossfire. This means Crossfire drivers get unequal length double wishbone suspension, a five-link suspension in the rear, recirculating ball steering, and an aggressive stance with 18-inch wheels up front and a pair of 19s in the rear.
What you got was more or less a Mercedes-Benz SLK320 but with a Chrysler body on top. However, there was a weird quirk in that production of the Crossfire began in early 2003 while production of the R170 ended in early 2004. That means for most of the Crossfire’s life, it was riding on a chassis that first debuted in 1995 and had already been surpassed by its own automaker.
Still, the Crossfire was still more or less a Mercedes with a Chrysler badge. It was pretty well equipped, too. The base model got the Mercedes-Benz M112 3.2-liter V6 good for 215 HP and 229 lb-ft of torque. Opting for the SRT-6 version netted you the same engine, but boosted with a supercharger to 330 HP and 310 lb-ft of torque. It was basically a Mercedes-Benz SLK 32 AMG with a Chrysler badge!
The options weren’t bad, either, and included a six-speaker Infinity sound system, CD-based GPS navigation, leather, a power spoiler, a six-speed manual transmission, and the option to get the Crossfire as a convertible with a power top.
This all sounds great, right? It was even built by Karmann in Germany! Using the Mercedes bones also meant a quick two-year development period at a cost of only $275 million.
The Media Has A Field Day
Unfortunately for the Crossfire, the media wasn’t as kind to the child of DaimlerChrysler’s marriage as it would be to the Pacifica.
Let’s start with perhaps the biggest outlet to spit on the Crossfire, and that’s Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear:
Right from the top, Clarkson described the vehicle’s rear end as resembling a dog taking a Morning Dump. As for performance, Clarkson noted that it was good that the vehicle’s 3,084-pound weight was lower than its rivals. The version he tested with the base engine took 7.2 seconds to hit 60 mph, which Clarkson found unimpressive. Clarkson also wasn’t a fan of the manual transmission or the apparently “detached” feel of the steering. The Top Gear segment continued by pointing out flaws with the suspension, the legroom, the size of the steering wheel, the visibility, and even the interior quality. Clarkson even panned the engine’s performance and fuel economy.
Top Gear hated the Crossfire so much that the magazine version of the outlet named it as one of the “13 Worst Cars of the Past 20 Years.” That’s a big yikes!
In a 2009 retrospective, Car and Driver seemed to support what Clarkson said:
What do you get when you combine a bunch of rehashed, last-generation Mercedes-Benz chassis components with overwrought styling and a bit of D-town pride? This bright-eyed hunk of weirdness, that’s what.
The Crossfire fell victim to that most heinous of sporty-car sins: It did nothing uniquely. Its chassis was borrowed from the 1997-to-2004 Mercedes-Benz SLK, and like the SLK, the Crossfire was a decent, if not brilliant, sporting GT. Potential buyers were put off by the art-deco looks and the $35,000-plus buy-in, and many simply bought an SLK instead. Or an Infiniti G35 or a BMW 3-series, both of which were more fun to drive than the Crossfire, and neither of which looked like a dog in the middle of a life-altering dump. (Incidentally, whose bright idea was it to name a car after multidirectional gunfire, anyway? In what world do you want a car whose name implies that it might go off in any direction at any moment, killing innocent bystanders?)
How’s this for flop: In the second year of Crossfire production, Chrysler actually resorted to dumping excess inventory on Overstock.com. Flop, flop, flopperoo.
Edmunds also wasn’t very nice to the Crossfire in its 2013 retrospective:
Note to manufacturers: Don’t name cars after something you don’t want to be caught in.
Born out of the Chrysler/Daimler-Benz partnership, the Crossfire was built on an aging SLK roadster platform. It seemed that most were pleased with the Crossfire’s boattail styling, but as the aforementioned Ford Thunderbird proved, style only goes so far.
The antiquated recirculating-ball steering made it slow to respond, handling was disappointing and at the same time, the ride was harsh. To further pile on the drawbacks, the interior fell short of expectations, as did overall performance and everyday convenience. In the end, not even Celine Dion could save the Crossfire, and the final insult came when remainders were sold off on overstock.com and eBay.
These retrospectives were mean, but so were other period reviews. The Telegraph also disliked the car:
This is indubitably the worst car I have ever driven. It beggars belief that the aristocrats of engineering, the artistes formerly known as Mercedes-Benz, have associated their name with such an aesthetic, functional and social atrocity.
[…]
The Crossfire is assembled by Karmann, which appears to have lost interest early in the process. Having clearly spent most of the budget on simulated louvres, nothing was left to lavish on glue and fastenings inside, so bits of trim hang loose. The facia is moulded in the sort of remorselessly hard and shiny plastic I last saw in a Russian car. In another masterpiece of simulation, the leather seats feel like Ghana Airways first-class lounge vinyl. Mercedes-Benz switchgear has been disguised by a horrible, shiny aluminium coating and the glovebox door does not fit.
The steering wheel is big, fat and ugly, with a lurid Chrysler badge to remind you of what a silly way you have spent your money. There is no cover for the exposed – yet exiguous – luggage area and there are no sensible storage options, no luggage nets or ties. Overall, the effect is physiologically and psychologically uncomfortable, the feeling crass and clumsy.
By now you will be wanting to know how it drives. The Crossfire is largely based on the old-model Mercedes-Benz SLK, but feels as though it is based on a detuned 1967 AMC Marlin with locked-solid suspension. Unusually large wheels – bigger aft than forward – contribute to an unyielding and crashing ride. Stopwatch statistics look fast, but the engine feels feeble: the Crossfire is slow to pick up speed and when it does, you have too much. This car does not invite driving. On the contrary, it invites parking. The gearchange is obdurate, especially reverse – strange for a car that so resolutely looks backwards.
Yikes! The press was harsh, but they may have been onto something. This was a Chrysler sports car with a $34,495 price tag and vintage Mercedes bones. Technically, it was possible to option one of these to $50,000 if you ordered your Crossfire as a convertible SRT-6. How did the public respond? 35,700 Crossfires were built in 2003 and 28,000 were built in 2004. Hey, that’s not bad for a sports car! Then, production and sales fell off of a cliff. Just 12,500 were built in 2005, 4,805 were built in 2006, and a paltry 2,000 were built in 2007.
The last Crossfire was built in December 2007 as Chrysler chose not to continue its production as part of its restructuring plan. Reportedly, Chrysler wanted to sell 20,000 units a year, which it did at first, but the automaker just couldn’t keep the momentum going.
Time Heals Wounds
It’s no longer 2007 anymore and I think it’s time to view the Crossfire in a new light.
A lot of enthusiasts are looking for affordable used cars with a bit of flair and personality. I think the Crossfire has all of that in spades. One huge advocate of the Crossfire is Stephen Walter Gossin, who recognizes that the Crossfire isn’t perfect, but that really doesn’t matter:
The first thing every review complains about is the “wooden” steering. I feel like one dude might have felt that way, then the rest of automotive media just piled on with a big “Yeah, what they said!”. The steering is fine. You turn the wheel and the car changes direction. If you’re on a track or using it for performance driving, then I’m sure there are comparative disadvantages, but most owners will be in daily traffic and getting dinners/ice cream and at C&C with these cars. It’s a 2-seater, so most owners will have another car also. The Jeep transmission has a very low 1st gear (probably for Jeeps), so unless you need to rocket off the line at a light, you can start in 2nd gear most of the time. The interior plastics are the worst part of this car and they were designed and implemented by Mercedes engineers, and placed in the car by Mercedes employees at a Mercedes factory.
With that said, it’s infuriating to hear reviewers state that it’s the “usual Chrysler cheap-assery” on the interior when the only Chrysler-sourced part on the entire car is the badge/manual transmission. These cars are engineered, designed and produced by Mercedes with a Chrysler badge. Here, look at the window sticker:
The staggered wheels, the phenomenal Deco design and the fact that it’s pretty much just 2 seats strapped to a decent-sized RWD V6 makes these cars the best case for spending your $3500 in this guys’ opinion.
I’m inclined to agree with Gossin here. The values of the Crossfire have dropped to insanely low levels. You can find a rough, but running example for just a couple of grand. If that’s too slow for you, there’s the SRT-6 and its performance goodies. Sure, you trade a manual transmission for an automatic, but you do get a sports car that hits 60 mph in 5.1 seconds with its AMG-style suspension and braking components. Even those could be had for a bit over $10,000.
That’s the beauty of looking at a car a couple of decades after it ended production. Sure, paying nearly $35,000 for a coupe with a Chrysler badge was a huge ask in 2004. However, now these cars are cheap; so inexpensive that might even be able to be purchased for the mythical “screw it” money. The hard plastic and parts bin raiding hurt a lot less when you don’t have as much skin in the game.
Yet, at the same time, the Crossfire was still just a pretty cool car on its own. It’s awesome Chrysler even put this car on the market when it could have just stayed the course of producing forgettable runabouts. If anything, I’d love for more automakers to take more big swings like this today.
I’m not going to tell you to buy one of these over an old Audi TT, an Infiniti G35, or even the SLK it’s built on. However, if you’re looking for something a bit different, I’d say look past Clarkson’s complaints and hop into the squatting dog of sports cars.
it could have just stayed the course of producing forgettable runabouts.
Instead they chose to expand their horizons and produce a forgettable coupe.
I guess kudos to Mercedes for trying something, but at the end of the day they were foisting a rebodied version of a car that was both quite old and not very good to begin with onto Chrysler for an outrageous price as that same base car was being replaced with a substantially better one.
Also, this:
The steering is fine. You turn the wheel and the car changes direction.
Isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for a car built on the platform of something that was originally supposed to be a Miata competitor (for either the Crossfire or the R170); and isn’t at all a rebuttal of the thing that it’s claiming to argue against. Like sure if you can get a Crossfire under ten grand then whatever I guess, but the SRT-6s that push deep into the high teens? Nah.
But rebuttal it is, my man. Look deeper into the syntax.
Thou doth protest too much about steering feel, methinks.
Nope, I think I’m good. Life is too short to glorify crap cars for pretending to be sporty. I’ve not driven a Crossfire, but I have driven an SLK320. The steering is trash. It’s vague and heavy and overboosted even though the wheel is too big. It reacts to inputs on a delay you have to plan for in advance. It’s legitimately more in line with something like an 80s GM sedan than it a two seat sporty car that, again was originally positioned as a Miata competitor. Let me be clear: This is not like someone saying “The Ferrari F355 is great but it’s steering doesn’t match the feel of a 911.” It was more like wondering why it felt like you were driving a pickup truck, and someone saying “it’s good enough if you’re stuck in traffic anyway” is not a rebuttal to the enthusiast press saying that it’s not very good compared to all of the cars it competed against directly (which they also did when the R170 was actually new).
On the R170 I suspect it got a little bit of a pass because the SLK offered a unique selling point unless you wanted to pay 70,000 1990s dollars to have a 3000GT get it’s roof hacked off by ASC. On a car that came out 7 years later at the same time as the R170’s replacement (where Mercedes made a deliberate effort to fix all of the problems with the R170) and was loaded with pieces lifted directly out of it even in the interior it was a bit of a joke car and treated as such, and you might as well have bought a Camry Solara or something.
Also I want to clarify that there’s nothing wrong with owning and liking a car that was kind of crap when it was new. Certainly less so when it’s aged and cheap and any sins that it committed when it was new are not nearly as relevant. I’ve had my own amount of extremely compromised cars that I loved (4th generation Seville STS being FWD, C4 Corvette being a stiffly sprung noodly rattletrap that lived about four years longer than it should have, 996.2 Carrera 2 with its shitty engine and interior that was still pretty bad even after Porsche redid it in 2001) that I bought for way less than they cost new. A Crossfire in 2024 for under ten grand or whatever is an unbelievably better proposal regardless of flaws than it was in 2005 when it cost more than a GTO, but that doesn’t mean the more blatant flaws never existed for the people who bought them new.
What a fun coincidence that this article should come out now! Someone near me has seemingly just bought a Crossfire (and are possibly selling their Jeep Patriot at the same time?). I’d never seen one in real life before, so it was quite fun to see one randomly start showing up driving about in my little British suburb.
I appreciate Chrysler of this era for genuinely trying to put out some good unique looking cars. It’s unfortunate the fit & finish never quite hit what they were going for – it always felt like they hadn’t fully committed to the bit, so even if you bought the styling, the rest of the car was a letdown. Still, I appreciate the unabashed attempt at an American luxury design language.
Solid take^
I’ll take the Pacifica which IIRC was well known for barfing it’s transmissions.
Chrysler Canada had a huge demo tour in the summer of ’04 to coincde with the launch of the LX cars – I drove just about the entire Mopar lineup (or rode in, with the SRT’s), so still remember these fondly as the first sports car I got to drive. I don’t question the flaws, but it’s small and relatively chuckable.
A friend of mine also worked at a performance driving school around that time, and they apparently loved the SRT-6 for holding up well to repeated track use.
The fact that it carried over so much of the interior of the SLK just caused be to lose even more respect for Mercedes than I already had by that point, acres of fake brushed metal finish plastic, like the off-brand DVD players they sold by the customer service counters in supermarkets
The only person I know who owned one of these was found guilty of embezzling Washington State Medicaid funds.
The Crossfire Concept somehow looks even worse than the production car—that is one hideous face. I’ve never hated the production car; sure the shape is a little weird but I’ve always figured it as Chrysler’s equivalent to the BMW Z coupe (whose shape was also a little weird). It was just subject to the usual Chrysler hate because there were…other issues with quality at the time.
Chrysler has a long record of poor quality fit and finish. My dad bought a 48 Chrysler Windsor w/ the fabulous flat head 6 and 3 speed fluid drive. It was slow as molasses in January and drank fuel like an SR71. But it seemed relatively well screwed together.
He traded the ‘48 on a ‘65 Newport demonstrator. Aside from the crapsastic 2 ply tires, the interior was horrible, with rattles aplenty. The ashtray and IP were misaligned with the metal under-dash panels by a 1/4” and the switchgear was cheap and flimsy. The drivers seat bolster (Bench seat) was wore out by about 50k miles. The starter motor failed at about 70k miles. The engine and transmission seemed to be fairly reliable. It did have a thirst for gas. Dad kinda lost his brand loyalty or at least switched it to Buicks. He had one of those 80s Buick Le Sabre (followed a Malaise Era V6 Monte Carlo) and the last car was a 94 Buick Le Sabre. My brother kinda took that over when mom stopped driving at 93 yrs old. It has a persistent Check Engine light and is reluctant to go into drive when starting from cold, but it will get you there, and maybe back again.
That corporate face was a mistake as it usually is, but this one had the added misfortune to recall Michael Scott’s Sebring from the front. Something about the tail lights also looked cheap, maybe it’s the separate elements that were a popular, terrible, design fad or the way it relates to the forms around it, but I always found them to be distracting in a bad way. Then add that they’re just a 2-seater with a small trunk, yet nearly universally appraised as having a terrible ride mated to being crap to drive—and the quoted defense here does not help the case—and part Chrysler, part malaise MB and I can see why they’re so cheap.
The quoted defense can be paraphrased that it’s a fun, unique RWD manual car for around $3K, which many can find value in.
At the low end of their value now, I agree, but I also don’t think it’s surprising that they didn’t sell well when they were new. Now, there’s barely anything even drivable for $3k around here and it would definitely have been used as a portable meth lab. I was responding more to the very lackluster comment about the steering that I read as basically: “it’s totally fine when you’re not actually steering with it.” I have no problem with lack of feel in the right vehicles (old land yachts), but not in what’s at least supposed to be some kind of fun-to-drive car (where I’m of the polar opposite feeling). Funny thing is, the driving issues were really MB’s fault and not Chrysler’s—MB loved their steering boxes long after everyone else went to racks and were never known for making a good manual shifter.
I like the Crossfire front end and I like the Crossfire rear end, just not on the same car. There’s something incongruous about the mating of these vehicular poles.
I find, though, that this bothers me more in photos than in reality where, happily, you can’t see both at the same time. Still, my overall impression is favorable of the Crossfire.. . Much less favorable if we’re discussing the convertible. That I don’t like.
I have a similar reaction to the first gen Audi TT. Love the coupe, only tolerate the roadster. The Audi is a much better blended design, front to back and I would much rather have a TT Coupe than a Crossfire, but I definitely wouldn’t turn the Chrysler away if a good deal came my way.
It’s a shame that the Crossfire became more of a misfire, but if that allows me get one cheap, it’s all to the good.
I started out in Mopar cars over 50 years ago and I wouldn’t mind bookending my driving days with one of these as a pleasure craft. Plus, you can’t go wrong with an SWG recommendation.
My man!
How’s that ute conversion progressing?
It was sidelined by a surprise find of a certain famous French car for sale near my under-volcano lair. I’ll be sharing details soon on the site – thanks for carrying the torch for the Buick Ute though.
It’ll probably happen this winter when things slow down a little. Cheers, homie!
Look forward to Frenchie and the Ute updates.
Have you driven a TT yet? I wanted one since they came out, and then I got behind the wheel of a 225 quattro version with a 6spd. I was …. disappointed. The driving dynamics weren’t there; it felt like my golf, because it was. Worse than that, the visibility was hilariously bad; you sat so far back compared to the greenhouse apex that you couldn’t see stoplights if you were the first one at the intersection. You’d have to lean forward awkwardly and peak up, or try to look out the side windows to find when the light turned green.
I still appreciate the design, but I don’t want to drive one anymore.
I have driven the TT, both in coupe and convertible form. It’s definitely not the ultimate handling machine, but I found it comfortable, predictable, and capable enough for me. I didn’t experience the forward visibility issue you did, or at least not so much that it bothered me, but that might a difference in our two overall heights and especially sitting height. At my age, it’s more than enough for me performance wise, though I know there’re better handlers out there. They just don’t look as good.
FWIW while it’s no patch on a Boxster or Z4 or RX-8 or 350z, the first gen TT at least had that nice solid Golf “chuckability;” so if you view it instead as the second best version of the Mk IV Golf (and nowadays that’s about how much they cost) it’s not too bad. I’ve never had the chance of driving any of the later generation TTs to see if they followed from that or shot for more.
Late in the Gen 1 model run (‘05, ‘06) Audi had most of the kinks worked out on the TT. If you want them to handle at their best, my mechanic say the first step with a used Gen 1 is to replace all of the suspension bushings and make sure everything is tight.
I drove a 2017 TT and in every respect, except looks (in my opinion) , it was superior to the first gen.
I would read more, but I’m worried I’d get caught up in the
CROSSFIYAAAAH!
…which seems to entail spinning into a fiery oblivion based on my research to date.
“Bright-eyed hunk of weirdness” – Hey, that’s MY name!
I dailied a Crossfire for 11 years, and it made me look back and smile almost everytime I parked it. I have owned a reasonable number of fun cars, to include a MkIII Midget, a Triumph TR8, an ’87 911 Targa, a ’90 944 S2 Cab, and a Mk7 Golf R, and I have no shame in adding my Crossfire to that list.
You don’t get in a Crossfire, you strap it on. It was very nicely balanced, rotating exactly around my hips. The engine loved to rev and the tire setup provided great contact patches. The interior designers knew they were doing art deco, and there are a dozen touches that showed they were paying attention, to include the rib line on the interior ceiling that matched the one on the roof. The instrument binnacle matched the gauges that matched the glove box handle. People get much more hung up on interior materials than I do, they didn’t bother me at all (though I wouldn’t say they were put in place by Mercedes – the cars were built by Karmann, R.I.P.). *Great* seats, if they fit you. If you do all of the wheelbase/windscreen math that Adrian talks about it was clear the car shared genes with the SL. And negative space is cool.
And, if you were buying a car in the very early 2000s, I cannot express how many PAINfully boring cars you had to choose from. The Crossfire was not boring. People waved at me. Or maybe my blinker was on.
I loved it.
Clarkson was right – about the convertible, which he liked enough to choose over the TT and Nissan Z of that year.
My parents had the convertible in powder blue and I rather liked it myself. It wasn’t a sports car but, as Clarkson noted, it was a relatively cheap, comfortable, good-looking car. It wasn’t exciting to drive, but there was far worse out at the time. And I think the design has aged quite well – apart from the cheap plastic interior bits anyway.
My Grandfather worked for Chrysler for most of his career. He retired in the mid 90’s. Part of his retirement package was getting a new Chrysler every year- they were essentially one year leases at a discounted rate. In 2005 Chrysler had a lot full of these with flat spotted tires. He was offered a two year lease on one for some stupid low number- $99/month or so- on top of the other lease he had. Of course, he took it.
I drove it a few times. Reasonably quick, decent handling for a non-track oriented sports car. Was it worth the MSRP? Not a chance. Was it worth a look after the first owner took the depreciation? Absolutely. If I had the space now I would absolutely consider one as a fun car.
Solid take.^
You remember it correctly. The corporate lease price reached down to a low, low $99/month at one point on base model, manual transmission Crossfires. I was awfully tempted to pick one up at that time. I don’t know about retiree leases, but for managers the price included insurance, registration, and maintenance too!
You know, if you can find the supercharger and a electric water-pump, we can have Ski-klasse making boost in about six hours.
Every 6 months or so, I get a call from some distraught Crossfire owner begging for help “cause it’s really just a Mercedes!” I gently take them in and shepherd them through the pain/joy of mid-00s Mercedes life despite their Chrysler badge. Honestly, I love the looks and I’m happy to help the owners. It works both ways too, I’ve absolutely called the Chrysler dealer for SLK parts when Mercedes shows NLA and it works! Mind you, the Chrysler sourced parts with Mercedes logos on the box are more expensive than the prices Mercedes lists if they had them.
Headlights – huge problem to replace.
We covered this a few months back – great call-out, Bob!
https://www.theautopian.com/even-cheap-cars-can-be-expensive-a-hard-lesson-i-learned-about-the-repair-parts-minefield/
Me: I am parting out my car.
Neighbor: So, do you have an engine hoist and stuff?
Me: No. I am unscrewing some lamps.
The convertible actually looks good. I think the styling has aged well.
Agreed. The only drawback was that it (unlike the R170 SLK) is a ragtop. The hardtop on the SLK was always a fun bit of choreography, performed beautifully (when the hydraulics behaved) and gave you security and quiet.
But you left out the best part about its original ending – the final models were sold directly to buyers on overstock.com!
Yep, you could put one in your cart at the price listed and check out, just like buying some lawn chairs or a set of wine glasses. It would then connect you with a dealer who would handle fulfilment.
It’s so wonderfully mid-2000s.
Do you O? O.co
Sounds like an appliance to me. Not a car. An appliance.
Sounds like overly critical binary conjecture to me^
I had a coworker with one of these the summer after my freshman year of college. It was pearlescent white and honestly I thought it looked pretty good. I even sat in! We sat in a church parking lot after closing up at work and passed a blunt back and forth. He was into the type of shit that would send you to the shadow realm and rolled like a gram and a half.
It might have been the highest I’d ever gotten at that time. He started talking about the meaning of life and death and whatnot. Naturally I got extremely uncomfortable and said I had to go. I walked back to our work parking lot and existential horror fell upon me when I remembered not only was I supposed to meet up with my friend afterwards-I had to DRIVE there. This was way before rideshares and public transit wasn’t really nearby, so I did what every sensible 19 year old idiot would do-I put on some Phish, I moved directly to the right lane, and drove there at exactly the speed limit.
We wound up meeting at a cool spot that the real ones in DC know called Fort Reno. It’s an old Civil War fort that’s fenced off but there are tons of open hills and fields around it. Not only is it the highest point in DC with incredible views, but they host free shows there every summer. Anyway I essentially laid down in the grass for 3 hours and said something to him and his girl maybe every 5-7 minutes until I sobered up.
CORE MEMORY UNLOCKED! This is why cars are so rad. Anyway, I’ve always thought that these are kind of cool. They’re RWD, can be had in manual, have weird Art Deco styling, etc. I feel like automotive journalists dunked on a lot of cars from this era that people have now come around to. The SC430 definitely comes to mind as well.
That being said, if we’re talking about affordable 2000s nostalgia machines, I’ll take a Solstice over one of these every time…or track down an SLK with a manual, because they’re out there and I’m sure the Mercedes transmission is more enjoyable than a repurposed Jeep one.
Tenleytown!
I think people are coming around to them now b/c they’re such an endangered species at this point – the non-sportscar coupe/convertible. To riff on SWG’s ideas a bit, they really were the end of the personal luxury coupe phenomenon that we’d had for so long. A stylish car with at least sporting pretentions that was easier to live with than a full-on sportscar.
And as usual, we didn’t appreciate what we had until it ended.
Excellent riffing, Jack! I dig your style.
I have always been fond of the design of these, but I absolutely wish they were built better. I looked at two of them for sale back in 2007/2008, one a 2005 and the other a 2006. Both car were squeaky messes, with interior bits either ready to fall off or already fallen off. I was pretty disappointed, but I’ve kept my eye out for an SRT-6 all these years just on the off chance I can find one cheap enough to deal with the interior problems and the general difficulty of finding the replacement parts for the Chrysler bits.
Yes! We always go hunting for these for the lot come springtime. We’ve sold 3 of them for under 10k in the past month and currently have a PERFECT BLACK SRT6 for $16k and some change. This is a lot of fanciness and sportiness for the price of a used corrolla.
Of course that used Corolla will be 10-13 years newer and be a Toyota rather than a dog-taking-a-dump Chrysler.
Under 10k for one is perfectly fine, but 16 grand even for an SRT-6 is starting to bump up against pre-facelift SLK55 prices.
I don’t think it was a bad car, It was a Mercedes Benz with a unique body. Didn’t care for the roadster, but I thought the coupe was pretty handsome.
The problem was you had the Boxster, The 350Z, the SLK it was based off of, S2000 etc… it just wasn’t striking or good looking to make it unique.
I think these are cool looking, and I think it’s a design that will age well