Guilty pleasure: Chrysler Crossfire

00s cars Chrysler

Pity the poor Chrysler Crossfire Coupé owners. For 20 years, they have been forced to listen to endless regurgitations of Clarkson’s quip about its canine-like posterior, often accompanied by the kind of sniggering you hear when somebody thinks they’ve got the better of you.

For a few years, the comments were confined to banter at the bar, wittering at the watercooler and sneering in the supermarket car park. Crossfire owners became dab hands at fake smirks, false nods of appreciation and responses along the lines of, ‘no, do tell me what Clarkson said about my car.’

Then came social media. Woe betide any unsuspecting Crossfire owner who dares to upload a photo of their new steed to Twitter or Facebook. It’ll be minutes, maybe even seconds, before somebody responds with a witticism about the Crossfire’s hinder parts.

Which is a shame because the Crossfire was no dog’s dinner. Inspired by the Eric Stoddard-designed concept of 2001, the Crossfire went from Detroit show car to reality in just two years, by which time the Brit, Andrew Dyson, had toned down the styling without diluting its impact. Dyson’s makeover didn’t suck.

The corporate grille remained, as did the boat-like bottom, while the vertically arranged headlights were replaced by more conventional units. Note the alloys, which were 18s at the front and 19s at the rear. The overall look was one of ‘Art Deco Hot Rod’, which is the Farrow & Ball paint colour you didn’t know you wanted.

In an interview posted on the now defunct IdeasFactory website, Dyson said: ‘The Art Deco style used in Detroit is expressive, using refined shapes. This suits our current image: we need to be over-expressive to show we’re an American company, but on a palatable level. It must be wild, but not outlandish – in good taste, in other words – to be successful internationally.’

But not that American. The Crossfire was a product of the largest industrial merger in history, when Daimler and Chrysler jumped into bed at a cost of $35bn (£25.83bn). The 1998 ‘merger of equals’ was designed to create an industrial powerhouse, but the marriage lasted just nine years, with a private equity group paying just $7.4bn (£5.5bn) for the beleaguered Chrysler, which had seen its US market share drop to just 14 percent.

Maybe the writing was on the wall when Mercedes-Benz allowed Chrysler to use its SLK to form the basis for the Crossfire. No, not the all-new R171 unveiled at the 2004 Geneva motor show, but the outgoing R170, which dated back to 1996. That said, the 215bhp 3.2-litre V6 engine was one of the Crossfire’s strengths, especially in supercharged SRT-6 guise, essentially Chrysler’s take on the SLK32 AMG. It’s just a shame that the chassis couldn’t cope with the thunderous 330bhp and 310lb ft of torque. Still, it was quick enough to escape from yet another squatting dog reference in a greyhound-like 5.3 seconds, before maxing out at a barking mad 155mph.

All cars were built by Karmann in Osnabrück, so while some of the materials used in the cabin were of questionable taste, you couldn’t knock the way it was screwed together. The fact that the Crossfire was 39 percent SLK 320 would be a suitable riposte to anyone who mentions the Clarkson thing but be prepared for them to respond with something along the lines of, ‘yeah, but it’s the other 61 percent I’m worried about, mate.’ Guffaw, etc.

Today, Crossfire prices start from less than £2000 for a leggy Coupé or £3000 for a Roadster. The main difference between the two is that rather than lip-reading the wisecracks of passers-by, you can hear the doggy doodah digs for yourself. If you’re blissfully unaware of Clarkson’s off-repeated comment, please enjoy this cut-out-and-keep section with Petrolblog's compliments:

‘I’ve been trying to think what it is that this shape reminds me of, and last night, it came to me. You know when a dog’s doing its… number twos, that kind of arched back thing… that’s what it is. Hideous. Ew’

This article first appeared in issue 22 of Classic.Retro.Modern. magazine.