Chrysler 300C Touring | Shed of the Week

Copying other peoples’ work used to be a heinous crime. Shed will never forget the clonk on the head he got from a flying blackboard eraser when the teacher caught him peering over his mate’s shoulder during a joggy exam, or geography as it is sometimes called. 

It’s different these days. Copying has become respectable, or even the norm. Exam markers now find themselves glumly poring over ChatGPT-generated dissertations while the students who were nominally responsible for creating them, or for pressing the ‘enter’ button at least, spend their time on more worthwhile academic pursuits like necking subsidised ale, going on Rag weeks and throwing custard-filled condoms at each other. Well, that’s what students did in Shed’s time anyway. 

Copying in the automotive world used to be a really serious problem before the Asian companies who were doing it suddenly realised, to their own surprise, that they didn’t need to do it. They could design their own cars. In the American market there’s been a more lasting tradition of manufacturers seeing a posh foreign design that matches their customers’ aspirations – nine-ninety-nine down and ninety-nine monthly payments of nine-ninety-nine-ninety-nine – and immediately producing a low-cost pastiche of it. They’ve been doing it since, well, forever. 

The one for the 2000s was the Chrysler 300C, most notably described on its launch in 2005 as a Bentley in a bad mood. Just to rub it in, you’ll see a couple of Bentleys sulking in the background of the dealer ad for this week’s Shed, a 124,000-mile 300 CRD Touring from 2007. 

Funnily enough, these 300s were well-liked in the UK where you’d think there’d be the biggest resistance to such unashamed ripping off of a glorious British icon. The key to the 300’s relative success here was just the same as in the US: it looked expensive from a distance but when you got closer it was easy to see the difference. The Chrysler’s interior has a plasticky feel about it. The material covering the seats looks more like linoleum than something off the back of a cow. For the fully authentic sweaty Stateside effect, Chrysler should maybe have put transparent plastic protectors on there. 

On this particular £2,000 specimen there’s some light scuffage to the wheels (unusually not black) and the bodywork, some of the chrome is manky, the grille trim is secured by a crosshead screw that’s rustier than Shed’s Landie and there’s a bullseye in the windscreen that could be the result of some sort of failed drive-by-assassination attempt. All that aside, this Touring looks ready to serve its next master as a commodious and, with luck, not too ruinous to run barge. 

A surprisingly sprightly one too. The Mercedes-sourced OM642 3.0 V6 diesel under the elongated bonnet churned out 215hp and a beefy 376lb ft of torque from 1,600rpm, enough with the 5-speed auto box to get this 1.9-tonne wagon through the 0-62mph run in around 8.5 seconds and on from there to not far short of 140mph. Both these numbers were better than the equivalent ones conjured up by the 249hp/250lb ft 3.5-litre petrol 300C.  The CRD drivetrain was more boiled beef and carrots than wagyu and caviar,  but it acquired a good rep in the Mercedes CLK and the sub-£2k used car buyer who will generally be more interested in reliability than roistering about.

Shed isn’t sure if this is still the case but there used to be a dedicated brotherhood of 300C lovers in the UK who would clue you in on all the things that could make you wish you hadn’t bothered becoming a member of that brotherhood. Like many a Mercedes engine before it, the OM642 was partial to an occasional flog up the dual carriageway to clear its lungs. Injectors didn’t always behave as they were supposed to and the timing chain was given to stretching. Other parts that might fail were DPFs, oil cooler seals, EGR valves, rods and actuators for the swirl flaps, turbo actuators, exhaust manifolds and anything to do with the suspension, but then you’re unlikely to escape that stuff on any number of other cars. Economy was OK at an average of 34mpg, giving you a 500-mile range between fills, and they drive better than you might think.

The MOT on this one runs to the end of January, the only two advisories on the last test being for the aforementioned screen damage and a busted rear numberplate bulb. Road tax should cost you £395 a year, or £415 depending on who you believe. The last time we had one of these on here the forum wittily noted that 300s were driven by men who looked like thumbs and who liked the look of them on the drive next to their stone lions. Someone else said they wouldn’t be seen dead in one, prompting another poster to comment that that was the only way he would be seen in one. Mock away if ye will, or see through that and give it some serious consideration as your next left-field waftmobile.