2006 Chrysler 300C SRT8: The Banker's Hot Rod, Rebuilt at 425 Horsepower

When DaimlerChrysler announced the 2006 Chrysler 300C SRT8 on August 31, 2005, its press release did not open with the new car. It opened with one fifty years older: the HEMI-powered 1955 C300, which the release called the "banker's hot rod." The comparison was the whole pitch. Here again was a big, well-trimmed Chrysler sedan with a hemispherical-chamber V8 and a reputation built on speed, and the release asked readers to see the new car in that tradition. The difference was that the modern one had four doors, a five-speed automatic, stability control and 425 advertised horsepower.¹

The car it invoked is well documented. Chrysler's February 1955 foldout for the 300 describes a limited-quantity sports coupe with a 331.1-cubic-inch FirePower V8, hemispherical combustion chambers, two four-barrel carburetors, a special camshaft and dual exhaust, advertised at 300 brake horsepower at 5,200 rpm on 8.5:1 compression. That was a period rating with its own measurement basis, not something to convert into a modern equivalent. The Chrysler 300 Club's history traces the letter cars that followed through the alphabet to the 1965 300L, which the club calls the last year for the letter-car series. Forty years later, the SRT8 claimed the lineage without taking a letter.²

The modern car had been revealed a year before the 2006 release. Chrysler Group announced the 300C SRT8 on August 12, 2004, at Pebble Beach, for showrooms in the spring of 2005. Its 6.1-liter HEMI, developed by the Street and Racing Technology group, was rated at 425 horsepower and 420 lb-ft, which Chrysler said made it the highest specific-output engine the company had ever offered at 69.8 horsepower per liter, ahead even of the 1966 Street Hemi. The engineers painted the block orange and the valve covers black to echo the old engine. SRT director Dan Knott gave the business reason: the HEMI already had "a nearly 50 percent take rate" in the 300.³

Chrysler priced the first SRT8 at $39,995 including $625 destination, and marketing vice president Jeff Bell framed it as a bargain: "For less than $40,000," he said, the car delivered "world-class handling, benchmark braking" and 425 horsepower. The 2006 release gives no price, so the 2006 sticker is not stated there. MotorWeek's test of the 2005 car recorded a base price of $40,045 and pointed out the $2,100 federal gas-guzzler charge that took the real figure to $42,145.^4,1,5

For 2006 the changes were modest and mostly about equipment. The release lists a new Silver Steel paint beside Bright Silver and Brilliant Black, standard tire-pressure monitoring, an optional Kicker audio system with 322 watts and a 100-watt subwoofer in place of the standard Boston Acoustics system, and an optional rear-seat video system. Inside, the sport seats carried performance suede inserts and were heated with memory, and the steering wheel and shifter wore technical leather. The interior came in Light Graystone and Dark Slate. The engine ratings were unchanged at 425 horsepower and 420 lb-ft.¹

The hardware explains the claims. Chrysler says the 6.1 made 25 percent more power than the regular 300C's 5.7-liter HEMI and drove through a five-speed AutoStick automatic. The suspension got tuned dampers, revised spring rates, larger anti-roll bars and recalibrated stability control, and the car sat half an inch lower on 20-inch forged wheels with Goodyear F1 tires, 245/45R20 in front and 255/45R20 at the rear. Brembo four-piston calipers clamped 360 mm front and 350 mm rear vented rotors. Reshaped fascias fed air to the brakes and a rear spoiler added, by Chrysler's figure, 39 percent more downforce without extra drag. The cars were built in Brampton, Ontario.¹

Chrysler's own performance claims were a 0-to-60 time in the low five-second range, 60-to-0 stops in about 110 feet and a 0-100-0 run in the mid-16-second range. MotorWeek's measured figures for its 2005 test car fit the claim: 60 mph in 5.0 seconds and the quarter-mile in 13.4 seconds at 104 mph, with EPA ratings of 14 mpg city and 19 highway and 15 mpg on its own mixed loop. The program's shorthand was that with this car "you must pay to play." Those results belong to MotorWeek's 2005 test car, not to every SRT8.^1,5

The 300C SRT8 was no longer alone in 2006, and that is what made the year interesting. The same 425-horsepower 6.1 powered Dodge's Magnum SRT8 wagon, priced from $37,995 including destination, and the new Charger SRT8 sedan. MotorWeek measured its 2006 Charger SRT8 at exactly the figures it had recorded for the Chrysler, 5.0 seconds to 60 and 13.4 seconds at 104 mph, at a base price of $38,095 including the gas-guzzler tax. On those numbers the buyer who chose the Chrysler was paying, on MotorWeek's two price tags, roughly $4,000 more for the badge, the interior and the banker's reputation, not for speed. Chrysler, after all, had built its advertising around that reputation.^6,7,5,1

How many buyers made that choice is not known. Chrysler never published a 300C SRT8 production or sales count. Its sales reporting gives 143,647 United States sales for the entire Chrysler 300 nameplate in calendar 2006, a context figure that covers every trim from the V6 sedan up and cannot be used to size the SRT8. The cars can at least be identified: Chrysler's 2006 VIN coding guide reserves a code of 7 in the sixth position for the SRT-8 and W in the eighth for the 6.1-liter SRT HEMI, with H in the eleventh for Brampton. Any honest count will have to come from those numbers.^8,9

The formula lasted. For 2007 Chrysler made its SRT Track Experience standard with the car and added Steel Blue and Inferno Red to the colour list, and the 425-horsepower rating stayed through 2010. When the SRT8 returned after the 300's 2011 redesign, it carried a 6.4-liter HEMI rated at 470 horsepower and 470 lb-ft at $47,170 plus $825 destination. By then the 2006 car's argument had become permanent Chrysler practice: a luxury sedan could be the fastest thing in the showroom, and the company would cite a 1955 coupe to prove it had always thought so. The banker's hot rod was back, with four doors.^10,11,12,1