Gadgetory

Chrysler 300 always had that kind of big broad-shouldered look to it then they bring on this next generation and it's like steroidal everything's gotten more in every direction visually though it's basically the same size car nothing short of a rolls-royce looks bigger on the road this is an SRT 8 that means a big v8 motor handling package big foots and as much Detroit as you can put on four wheels you've got this very glitzy kind of big massive rolling kind of design in here come of this patek philippe gage layout with a nicely done color helper screen but that's really at odds to my eye with the playschool Garmin navigation system now this is the biggest screen in the business right now with the exception of some really high end cars 8.4 inch LCD I absolutely love the touch response this is one of the Great's in terms of crisp throttle response on the screen look at that and that same clarity mostly goes for things like climate control nice big buttons pretty easy to figure out without the manual then there's player and radio they break up media under those two tabs player means anything that isn't radio so you go to the source button here and you've got of course your optical disk SD card not real popular USB that'll take thumb drives or iPod iPhone auxilary of course is your failsafe backup and bluetooth streaming under radio standard stuff am/fm satellite radio no HD radio here Sirius brings in your traffic and weather information which brings us to this screen here's our Sirius travel link which has all those features so you've got a fairly rich telematics system here without having a full live Google search which the best cars in the business have right now but this is one teardown if you will how did you notice this SRT performance you can turn on various sets of virtual gauges that are reading off the OBD port that all cars have but few cars surface now on the phone screen of course Bluetooth hands-free and phonebook download and all that notice that you've got a static fixed set of functions down here kind of like your taskbar in Windows but that's good layout of information I kind of always know where to look for my functions they're basically always here most of the time Oh check it out just got a text message I can read that if I'm not moving or since it's a car it probably will be I could have it read to me hey can you spot me five keys on credit dog and I can reply with some canned messages now the gearbox is a little bit antiquated 5-speed automatic you've got a slap gate back here for down shifts and up shifts or you go to the cast aluminum paddles which though they're mounted on the wheel at least they're dedicated one for downshift one for up shifts all right below those are these weird little Chrysler little rocker switches on the back of the wheel they're totally hidden but there's a bump in the middle of each one that lets you change selection this one on the right is up-and-down for volume the one on the left is up-and-down for track or selection I don't think you ever need to take your hands off this wheel address United States 235 second Street San Francisco California did you say to one would you like to begin that yes that's damn impressive I rattled off the street address without saying individual digits gave it city gave it state it parsed it all out and did it with no errors it's not always perfect but it's one of the best I've ever seen now of course a big part of the srt8 story is the eighth and that lives in here this big bastard a six point four liter aluminum v8 it doesn't the old fashioned way no turbo no blower it's just big 390 cubic inches what they really ought to call it that just sounds bigger to me four hundred and seventy horse 470 foot-pounds of torque gets this big guy up to 60 in about 4.9 to be a little bit faster the downside is you're gonna get 14 23 mpg and that's on a good day when you're not paying attention to the pedal on the right get into it more and who knows in fact this guy gets hit with $1,000 gas guzzler tax which I almost never see anymore let's go see if it's worth this placement normally aspirated engine has to do well is half power ready all the time there's absolutely no excuse especially at this price of like 48,000 and this mpg of on you wanna look average seven point one this is a car that has to deliver power all the time or the point is missed and this one does whether you're in stop-and-go whether you're getting on a freeway whether you're hammering it wide open and want to go that much faster the power is always there the ride quality is firm all the time even when I'm not in sport mode it's got a ride that is definitely telling you you're riding in a big car with super low-profile tires and a lot of weight on the hoof and of course in a lot of other cars you'd hear me grouse about this being a five-speed Automatic missing one two three even four gears compared to other cars today but with this kind of cubic inches it doesn't matter it just overcomes whatever gear you're in the srt8 is a fifty thousand dollar 300 before you add the dubious $2,000 speakers or blind spot and adaptive cruise tech that seems to gild the lily on a car like this instead buy it for what it is a really fast steamroller with a downtown style all its own