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Mike Spinelli on Jalopnik
Forgotten Cars
Chrysler Crossfire
6/04/13 10:00am 6/04/13 10:00am
18,432g
21
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You Forgot All About The Chrysler Crossfire, Didn't You?
You Forgot All About The Chrysler Crossfire, Didn't You?SExpand

Admit it. The Chrysler Crossfire has slipped your mind. Days, no weeks — months, a year, two, three — have gone by, and no Chrysler Crossfire, a car to which you once probably devoted a thought here and there. How could something once present in your consciousness just go away like that?

It's not like it's been gone that long. The Chrysler Crossfire has only been off the market since 2008. Yet, experts say, on any given day more people think about Bob Dole driving a Cadillac Catera than they do about the Chrysler Crossfire.

Of course, this is less likely to be true if you live in Michigan. In Michigan, you see everything all the time. Wait on a street corner in Michigan for a couple of hours and you'll see a Pontiac Astre. The Pontiac Astre was Pontiac's version of the Chevy Vega. You didn't remember that? Obviously, you don't live in Michigan, where the last remaining Pontiac Astres in the universe live in blissful ignorance of their extinction elsewhere. And where only a real ******** would tell them about that.

Right now, somewhere in Michigan, an Oldsmobile Alero just went by and nobody even noticed.

The line between forgotten classic and just plain forgotten is pretty clear. I know car guys younger than 25 who could rattle off the entire product cycle of the Chrysler-Maserati TC. But the Chrysler Crossfire? Not even a blip. Maybe in a few years they will, but for right now the Crossfire is in limbo, thanks to the 22-year rule. That is, a car has to be at least 22 years old before bringing it up in conversation with car nerds will change the energy of the room.

Try it. Next time you and your car nerd friends are hanging out on someone's patio, drinking an IPA brewed in some other car-nerd's basement, mention the Oldsmobile Achieva. Schmuck, the Achieva is only 21 years old at best. Had you said Buick Reatta, you could have sat back in smug satisfaction as the car-nerd fireworks went off. Instead, the conversation switched to LeMons cars.

You Forgot All About The Chrysler Crossfire, Didn't You?SExpand

But what about the Chrysler Crossfire? Was it any good? I know I've driven it, I think I even wrote about it, but I can barely remember it.

Here's what I have, strictly from memory: It had a Mercedes platform, wasn't that it? An SLK? Or an SL? No, it'd be too small. An SLK. C-class based. And it had a V6, and there was an SRT version with a supercharger that some people liked. And it was a little cramped inside and it had that narrow hatchback, and (oh!) there was a weird roadster version. That's all I've got.

Clearly, the Crossfire was a hopeful collaboration, but ultimate disappointment of strained Daimler-Chrysler tensions. It appeared first as a show car in 2001 before launching into production in 2004, the base model powered by Mercedes' 18v, 3.2-liter SOHC V6. The design language was visionary, but largely awkward and divisive. It did have its fans, though, who appreciated its grand-touring ride quality and Benzish anointment.

The Crossfire sold pretty briskly — at just under $40 grand a pop — in 2003 and 2004, peaking in its first year at around 36,000 units, but sales fell off so sharply that by 2006, you could get one on Overstock.com for less than an espresso machine. And that's only partly a joke — they were offered on the big O for $8,900 off MSRP.

The SRT version was actually pretty kickass. It had a stiffened suspension, lots of rubber and a 330-horsepower Kompressor V6 similar to that in the SLK320, but resentfully detuned by Stuttgart to the de-tune of 20 horsepowers. Still, there was quite a lot of Mercedes in there for the money. It's been described, somewhat charitably, as a bargain SLK AMG, assembled by Karmann in Osnabrück, Germany, which is a real place.

And now that you've thought of it, the Chrysler Crossfire can, and will, slink back into your deep memory well until around 2029, when your kids will bug you, over homemade IPAs, about what the weird cars of the 2000s were really like.

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23 participants@

CobraJoeUMike Spinelli
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I didn't forget about it, the past two places I worked had one guy driving one. I just never cared to find out more about it than I already knew.

The biggest disappointment to me is the styling. The concept was interesting and a bit clever.



See that white stripe down the windshield? It's not a split windshield, it's a wiper.

But like every Chrysler concept, they tamed it way down to make it cheap to build, and it just lost my interest. 6/04/13 10:30am


BiPolarWithCarsUCobraJoe
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You said it - they tamed down the styling to make it cheap and instead of having some distinctive features it looks like a stripper's day-off shoe.

If you're going to build an impractical car, such as a 2 passenger anything that isn't getting amazing mpgs, you'd better make the thing look damn good.

Sincerely,

Lotus, the original makers of money hemorrhaging impractical cars. 6/04/13 11:18am


T_WhizUCobraJoe
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I like the production version better than that. The concept looks like it got punched in the face. 6/04/13 11:23am


CobraJoe and 19 others...
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472CIDUMike Spinelli
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It was all part of America's weird half-baked sportscar craze of the aughts. Between Chrysler's success with bringing their concept cars to life (Viper and PT), and VW kicking off the retro craze everybody wanted an outrageous "wow" car. The problem was that most of them were built for the sake of building them. 6/04/13 10:22am


kercU472CID
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I gotta say that the Prowler does look damn good. 6/04/13 10:25am


pauljonesU472CID
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"The problem was that most of them were built for the sake of building them."

The same can be said of every super car/hyper car ever. And the problem with that is... what, precisely? The odd thing about the Crossfire is that it unlike the SSR or the Prowler, the Crossfire wasn't built just for ***** and giggles - it was actually a reasonably legitimate (if cynically half-assed) attempt to give Chrysler a competitor in that arena. And despite being something of a ******* child, it was actually a pretty damn good car. It's only problem was that the car buying public is too shallow to look past the badge and the older M-B platform it was based on to give it any credit. No matter how good it was (and it was actually pretty good), it would never be considered good enough. 6/04/13 10:30am


fritzo and 15 others...
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BrtStlndUMike Spinelli
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Here's the base model:

6/04/13 10:19am


BrtStlndUBrtStlnd
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... and the SRT version:

6/04/13 10:19am


The_GribblerUBrtStlnd
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You win. 6/04/13 10:28am


Kyle Carroll and 14 others...
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F1_nothing_else_mattersUMike Spinelli
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It was underpowered (in non SRT form), cramped, hard to see out of and the ergonomics were terrible. From the outside... the car looked pretty cool. 6/04/13 10:02am


ranwhenparkedUF1_nothing_else_matters
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In other words, Bob Lutz would have loved it. 6/04/13 10:11am


rowmyownUranwhenparked
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I don't associate Bob Lutz with under powered. From my perspective, the low power was the biggest problem. 6/04/13 10:52am


Milky and 5 others...
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EL_ULYUMike Spinelli
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i liked the Crossfire SRT-6, they have a following. Also rad were the Pontiac Soltice, Saturn Sky, and even the Cadillac Catera with its ugly *** face...still RWD and Merican! Im still pulling for you GM, I know you can do it if you could just give less ***** and unleash the demons (Chevelle, Monte Carlo, El Camino, RWD Malibu, RWD Impala, and many other V8 spawns of SATAN \m/

-Dickcheese663 6/04/13 10:15am


Swagger2005UEL_ULY
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I'm sorry, but other than the Caddy name, there was nothing Merican about the Catera. It was basically a badge engineered Opel. 6/04/13 10:32am


EL_ULYUSwagger2005
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Yup i know, still, it was more Merican than a Toyota Avalon lol 6/04/13 10:56am


Vin and 6 others...
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Nick-SpeedUMike Spinelli
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F1_nothing_else_matters, BrtStlnd, Apollon and others.
I like Clarkson but he can be full of **** many times.
You clowns are all full of it. You need to know something about anything before giving us your 2 cents worth. Yes it was Daimler/Chrysler stepchild that is now an orphan. The marketing of it was very poorly executed. It is an SLK lock, stock and barrel under the sheet metal made by the coach-builder of olden times, Karmann.
On paper it doesn't seem like much spec wise but in real life, Limited not SRT, it runs like an 2005-2011 Mustang GT. AND it brakes and corners. IF you want to light up those BIG rear tires it will do that easily in 1st and 2nd if you turn the TC off. Wrap your head around that. It hit the scales at 3000 lbs, that's why. The concept was strange looking the real car is good looking. As a used car they are bargain priced, I got an 05 for $12,495 and it had 12,000 miles. Most were purchased new as second or third cars by older people. Great build quality and a decent array of after-market chassis and brake hot rod stuff is available. The SRT6 cars make great 1/4 mile cars. You can shift (6-speed manual) with the cruise control engaged, seamlessly. Affordable RWD fun that's not an overweight Camaro, Mustang or (E Class hand-me-down derivative) Challenger. What's not to like. 6/04/13 6:55pm