Chrysler 300

This is the catalogue record of the Chrysler 300, one of 144 models Chrysler has placed in the historical record and one of more than seventeen thousand cars the MotorJury library tracks. The record places its introduction in 2004. The photography on this page is hotlinked from Wikimedia Commons under an open licence, with the photographer credited on every frame.

The era it was born into

To read the Chrysler 300 properly it helps to place it in its decade. The 2000s were the decade of electronics — stability control, dual-clutch gearboxes and the first serious hybrids arrived while platform-sharing consolidated the industry into a handful of giants. Any car launched into that world was shaped by it — by what materials, engineering and regulation allowed, and by what buyers of the day demanded. Its direct contemporaries in this catalogue, introduced within three years of it, include the Ford Ford Mustang, the Hyundai Hyundai Tucson, the Suzuki Motor Corporation Suzuki Swift — the cars a buyer of the period would actually have cross-shopped.

The numbers, read closely

On paper, the Chrysler 300 reads like this: the record lists its engine as 2.7 L EER V6 / 3.5 L EGG V6 / 5.7 L EZB Hemi V8 / 6.1 L ESF Hemi V8 / 3.0 L Mercedes-Benz OM642 CRD turbo-diesel V6; kerb weight is recorded at 3,721–4,046 lb (1,688–1,835 kg); drive goes through 4-speed Ultradrive 42RLE automatic / 5-speed Mercedes-Benz W5A580 automatic; the layout is Front engine, rear-wheel drive / all-wheel drive. Every figure above is a manufacturer specification carried by the Wikipedia infobox or the open Wikidata record for this model — nothing on this page is estimated, and where a source is silent the row simply does not appear.

Its place in the Chrysler story

Within Chrysler's own catalogue the Chrysler 300 sits alongside the Chrysler Falcon, the Chrysler Chronos, the Chrysler Sunbeam, the Chrysler Avenger. The record names the For Chrysler 300: / Chrysler 300 letter series / Chrysler 300 non-letter series / Chrysler 300M / Chrysler Concorde / Chrysler Intrepid (Canada) / For Lancia Thema: / Lancia Thesis as its predecessor, anchoring one end of its lineage. Design is credited to Ralph Gilles (2000) / Freeman Thomas (2000) / Tom Gale (2000). Assembly is recorded at Canada: Brampton, Ontario (Brampton Assembly) / Austria: Graz (Magna Steyr: 2005–2010) / China: Beijing (Beijing Benz: 2006–2009).

On the record

For the years the United States federal record covers, EPA-rated economy comes in at 23 mpg combined, which works out near $3,900 a year in fuel at current prices.

How this catalogue works

This library is generated, verified and rebuilt from the open record on every deploy. The catalogue skeleton comes from Wikidata, specifications from Wikipedia's infoboxes under CC BY-SA, photography from Wikimedia Commons under each file's own licence, and the ownership data from United States federal safety records. Nothing is written by hand and nothing is invented: every fact on this page traces to a public source, and every page is rebuilt nightly as those sources improve. Errors in the source record will appear here too — and disappear the night the source is corrected.

From catalogue to ownership

The catalogue records what the Chrysler 300 was; the ownership database records what it is like to own. MotorJury computes a verdict for every model year the United States federal record covers — complaints, recalls, real economy — refreshed nightly, with no opinions involved. If this car reached the American market, its verdicts are in there.