Low and behold, whilst situating my car in the back of the lot, what should my eyes light upon but a Chrysler Crossfire! This one has been somewhat molested from the look of things. For starters, I don’t believe Crossfires need any type of striping, especially on the hood, because the designers of the vehicle, Eric Stoddard (worked also on the Pacifica and the Viper) and Andrew Dyson (not to be confused with James, the vacuum guy) incorporated some rather delightful aero rib lines on the hood, and the overall feel of the car’s aesthetics harkens back to a kind of Art Deco 1920-30’s frame of mind. The pseudo boat tail design of the Crossfire’s rear end rounds out that theme.
This is a car that has style and you don’t mess about with that by adding tacky pinstripe flourish stickers or a big, skunky looking white racing stripe against the contrast of the black body of the car. Sure, sure, to each his own and what not, but sometimes, I just want to walk up to the driver of a car that’s been aesthetically compromised in cheesy and ugly ways and just shake some sense into them.
The Crossfire was the short-lived product of the merger between Diamler-Benz and Chrysler, and only saw production for the span of 4 years between 2004-2008. This isn’t some hyped up Stratus or Cirrus in coupe form, either. Under the skin, this car is actually over 80% Mercedes Benz. It is based on the SLK320. You’d think that alone would make this a highly desirable car, but actually, you’d be mistaken about that.
For starters, the car got raked across the coals for poor handling characteristics and driving dynamics. Part of the problem there stemmed from the steering system, which was all Benz, using a recirculating ball system instead of rack and pinion. This was a set up that Mercedes used often because it lent itself to a smoother feel and less friction in its function due to its design. Imagine it like your steering wheel is attached to a shaft that’s like a big threaded bolt. When the wheel and thus the bolt is turned, it causes the block of metal that it’s threaded into to turn around it instead of screwing down deeper into that block. The thread of the bolt and the block don’t actually meet up, but are buffered by a string of ball bearings that make all that twisting and turning much smoother than it would otherwise be. That block of metal has teeth cut into the outside of it which gear up with what’s called a pitman arm. The pitman arm connects up with the tie rods, each of which are attached to the steering arm of the wheel it controls. The torque created when you turn the steering wheel and cause the bolt-like shaft we first mentioned to turn in the block, thus causing the block’s outer gears to move the pitman arm will push and pull the two torque arms to the left or to the right, thus turning the car.
The disadvantage of the recirculating ball design was a deadened feel to the steering, and in a sport coupe, that’s bad, bad, bad. A recirculating ball system is also heavier than rack and pinion, which is another no no in sporty cars where weight reduction is important. In a situation where there is no power steering, the recirculating ball design makes it much easier to steer than a rack and pinion set up… but, because this is a somewhat recent car, there is power steering, which assists the driver in cranking the steering wheel around to make the car’s wheels steer, so the advantages of the recirculating ball are negated and you’re left with a heavy and dampened steering system that has a dead zone in its function right at the center mark where you turn the wheel a bit and nothing happens til you surpass that dead zone.
Another thing the Crossfire got from its SLK320 sibling was its engine, 3.2L V6 that was good for 215HP and 229 lb ft of torque. Well, that’s not too bad for propelling a car this size (a bit over 3,000 lbs), but you know what’s better? An intercooled supercharged version of that 3.2L V6 that was available on the 2005-2006 SRT-6 version of the Crossfire! That brought those numbers up to 330 HP and 310 lb ft of torque. The bummer about the SRT-6 is that it was only available as a 5 speed automatic, whereas you could get a regular Crossfire with either an automatic or a 6 speed manual.
Another difference between the SRT-6 and the regular Crossfire was the rear spoiler. On a regular Crossfire, that spoiler stays nestled flat into its place in the body skin of the car up until the speedometer hits 56 MPH, which causes the spoiler to pop up into place. On an SRT-6, there’s a bigger spoiler that’s fixed in place. On top of that, the SRT-6 ran two different sized rims from front to back with 18” in front and 19” in the rear.
The thing is, these cars, for all their Art Deco flair and style, did not sell well at all. The MSRP on a run of the mill Crossfire started at around $30,000,and an SRT-6 coupe would cost around $45,000 on up to near $50,000 for a roadster version. It got to the point that Chrysler had problems unloading these pretty little cars and actually posted the last bit of their inventory on Overstock.com priced at a discount of about $8,000-$9,000 under MSRP.
So, we must ask why didn’t anybody want to buy these cars? After all, a buyer of a new Crossfire was essentially getting a discounted Mercedes SLK320 with some slick styling. Well, some of it was probably the dampened driving feel, but you know, that’s never stopped buyers from purchasing things like a Lexus SC430, so what could it be? I’m betting the problem lies mostly in the near total lack of utility that the Crossfire brings to the table. That neat looking boat tail fast back design is all style and no substance. Open up that hatch and you can barely fit anything inside the opening. Not to mention, there’s not much room to speak of in there anyway. Also, the interior styling was nothing to write home about, lacking in anything to really match or come close to matching the look and feel of the car’s exterior. When people think of splashing out on a sport coupe or roadster that’s really only good for moving 2 occupants and possibly a duffle bag or backpack around, they typically look for a brand name that carries a bit more panache than Chrysler. Say we were to time travel back a few years and rip off those Chrysler badges to replace them with the Mercedes Benz tri-point star? Betcha’ suddenly you’d find people could justify the purchase… but it was not to be.
I think a nice, low mile SRT-6 Crossfire, either in roadster or coupe form would make a good addition to a car collection. They are the product of a significant merger in the history of the Chrysler company and represent a beautiful study in design. I think these are nice cars to look at, and an SRT-6 should be at least somewhat fun to drive. To that end, I’ve done some shopping around in the internet and found the following: A 2005 SRT-6 coupe with about 23,000 miles can be had for right around $18,000, and a roadster SRT-6 with about 10K more miles will cost closer to $20,000. For a regular Crossfire you can knock off about $6,000 from that price, though a regular roadster from the last year or two that Crossfires were made seem to be demanding about the same money as an SRT-6 coupe.
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