The Final Chrysler 300 Recently Rolled Off the Production Line
The Chrysler 300 is joining its corporate siblings in being discontinued after the 2023 model year, and the automaker recently announced that the last car has left the production line. Workers at the Brampton Ontario Assembly Plant recently gathered to commemorate the end of the line for the car, giving it a sendoff before the automaker moves further toward electrification.
The Velvet Red 2023 Chrysler 300C rolled off the line last week, sporting a 6.4-liter Hemi making 485 horsepower and 475 pound-feet of torque. Though the powertrain delivers incredible performance and a gnarly sound, Chrysler parent Stellantis has been moving away from eight-cylinder engines in favor of its newer inline-six-cylinder mills.
Chrysler has a long history, with the 300 dating back to the 1950s. It ran for several years before taking a nearly 30-year hiatus from the market. It returned in the late 1990s and got further updates in 2005 with a Hemi V8 and later in 2014 with the 6.4-liter engine seen today. It, along with its Dodge counterparts, the Charger and Challenger, have been long overdue for an update, but the move to electrification has changed the role these types of cars will play going forward. Dodge may revive one or both of its cars with a new engine and an electric variant, but Chrysler hasn’t hinted at a return for the 300 down the road.
The 300C joins the Dodge Charger and Challenger in being discontinued after this model year, but its sendoff hasn’t been as elaborate. Dodge gave the coupe and sedan a series of limited-edition models that honor historic models from their long-running histories in the U.S. auto market.
[Image: Chrysler/Stellantis]
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Chris grew up in, under, and around cars, but took the long way around to becoming an automotive writer. After a career in technology consulting and a trip through business school, Chris began writing about the automotive industry as a way to reconnect with his passion and get behind the wheel of a new car every week. He focuses on taking complex industry stories and making them digestible by any reader. Just don’t expect him to stay away from high-mileage Porsches.
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- KOKing I owned a Paul Bracq-penned BMW E24 some time ago, and I recently started considering getting Sacco's contemporary, the W124 coupe.
- Bob The answer is partially that stupid manufacturers stopped producing desirable PHEVs.I bought my older kid a beautiful 2011 Volt, #584 off the assembly line and #000007 for HOV exemption in MD. We love the car. It was clearly an old guy's car, and his kids took away his license.It's a perfect car for a high school kid, really. 35 miles battery range gets her to high school, job, practice, and all her friend's houses with a trickle charge from the 120V outlet. In one year (~7k miles), I have put about 10 gallons of gas in her car, and most of that was for the required VA emissions check minimum engine runtime.But -- most importantly -- that gas tank will let her make the 300-mile trip to college in one shot so that when she is allowed to bring her car on campus, she will actually get there!I'm so impressed with the drivetrain that I have active price alerts for the Cadillac CT6 2.0e PHEV on about 12 different marketplaces to replace my BMW. Would I actually trade in my 3GT for a CT6? Well, it depends on what broke in German that week....
- ToolGuy Different vehicle of mine: A truck. 'Example' driving pattern: 3/3/4 miles. 9/12/12/9 miles. 1/1/3/3 miles. 5/5 miles. Call that a 'typical' week. Would I ever replace the ICE powertrain in that truck? No, not now. Would I ever convert that truck to EV? Yes, very possibly. Would I ever convert it to a hybrid or PHEV? No, that would be goofy and pointless. 🙂
- ChristianWimmer Took my ‘89 500SL R129 out for a spin in his honor (not a recent photo).Other great Mercedes’ designers were Friedrich Geiger, who styled the 1930s 500K/540K Roadsters and my favorite S-Class - the W116 - among others. Paul Bracq is also a legend.RIP, Bruno.
- ToolGuy Currently my drives tend to be either extra short or fairly long. (We'll pick that vehicle over there and figure in the last month, 5 miles round trip 3 times a week, plus 1,000 miles round trip once.) The short trips are torture for the internal combustion powertrain, the long trips are (relative) torture for my wallet. There is no possible way that the math works to justify an 'upgrade' to a more efficient ICE, or an EV, or a hybrid, or a PHEV. Plus my long trips tend to include (very) out of the way places. One day the math will work and the range will work and the infrastructure will work (if the range works) and it will work in favor of a straight EV (purchased used). At that point the short trips won't be torture for the EV components and the long trips shouldn't hurt my wallet. What we will have at that point is the steady drip-drip-drip of long-term battery degradation. (I always pictured myself buying generic modular replacement cells at Harbor Freight or its future equivalent, but who knows if that will be possible). The other option that would almost possibly work math-wise would be to lease a new EV at some future point (but the payment would need to be really right). TL;DR: ICE now, EV later, Hybrid maybe, PHEV probably never.
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I had a Challenger. Were I to buy another of these cars it would be the 300.
This is Déjà vu...
Remember when Ford closed out of the Panther platform at its Canadian facility in 2012.
A very sad day.
Sidenote: my local Ford dealer had a 2011 Lincoln Town Car on his used car lot earlier this month. It was gone in two days!!