Chrysler to torch Crossfire

Newswheel staff :: 29 September 2005 :: Filed under Cabriolet, Coupe, Chrysler, Chrysler Crossfire, Europe & UK, US

[Click on an image to view]

Unloved sportster won’t be replaced

Take proven German engineering. Add snazzy styling designed to turn heads in the US. And what do you have? Rip roaring success from the Chrysler 300C (based on the previous W210 version of the Mercedes E-Class) and a damp squib in the Chrysler Crossfire (a rebodied Mercedes SLK at heart). Whoever said building popular cars was easy…

While an official announcement of the Crossfire’s demise hasn’t been released, comments made by Chysler’s Joe Eberhardt don’t leave a great deal to doubt.

"I think as an industry and as a company, we have to get away from the fact that every new vehicle automatically has to have a replacement," Eberhardt said when queried over the Crossfire’s future.

Modern masterpiece
Then again, he also suggests the Crossfire “has done an awful lot for the brand. It has helped redefine our design and engineering capabilities." Well, if you call dropping new panels onto a Mark 1 Mercedes-Benz SLK “design and engineering.” But we digress.

For sure the Crossfire isn’t much of a driver’s car, in no small part thanks to its stodgy Mercedes C-Class underpinnings (that’s the car upon which the SLK itself was based) and dreary recirculating ball steering rack. Nevertheless, at the very least it’s the sort of adventurous and risky design that makes the world a slightly more interesting place. For that alone it will be missed when it goes.

But if you’re a Crossfire fetishist, don’t panic. Chrysler’s deal with Karmann, which manufactures the car under contract in Germany, is thought to run out in late 2007 or early 2008. It ain’t dead yet.

Linkage:
Autoweek
Edmunds.com