A Sell-Out Show
by David Finlay (17 Nov 03)

I'm not sure if it has an official name, but let's call it the Duck Principle. This is what scientists use to avoid the crazy explanations offered by less sober-minded folk when an apparently new phenomenon is discovered. It says that if something looks like a duck, sounds like a duck and acts like a duck, then it's probably a duck, rather than the ghost of Henry VIII, the reincarnation of Christ, or the Loch Ness Monster.

I like the Duck Principle, but I'd be the first to admit that it falls apart if you try to apply it to the Chrysler Crossfire. The Crossfire, which caught the public imagination to such an extent that the entire first-year UK allocation of 1000 cars was already sold before the first shipment arrived on these shores a few days ago, looks like a Chrysler (or rather like the sort of thing Chrysler might be expected to put into production more or less on a whim), but in almost every respect it acts like a Mercedes. So much for the duck.

The Crossfire first appeared as a concept car at the 2001 Detroit Show, then again at Geneva in March 2002. Very few concept cars ever make it to production, but there are exceptions. Volkswagen's Concept One was transmogrified into the new Beetle, and Chrysler's own PT Cruizer hit the streets with only detail modifications and a minor spelling alteration. The Crossfire has just completed a very similar process.

It's a child of America in many respects, developed by Chrysler's Advanced Product Creation team over in the home of the brave. The styling - which I'll leave you to study in the photographs rather than discuss here - has a strong US feel to it, with no immediately obvious European influence.

At the same time, though, 39% of the components and systems in the car are taken from existing DaimlerChrysler inventory, which in most cases means that they already appear in Mercedes production cars. The most obvious example of this is the engine, a 3.2-litre twin-spark V6 which gives out a fairly relaxed 215bhp, allows for a 0-62mph time of 6.5 seconds and would push the Crossfire beyond 155mph but for the existence of an electronic speed limiter.

The rest of the Mercedes input can be felt rather than seen or heard. As the above figures suggest, the Crossfire is decently quick, and it grips the road very securely indeed. Huge wheels (18" front, 19" rear) and tyres (225mm wide front, 255mm rear) keep it locked to the ground, even when that ground is as wet as it was when I drove two examples recently.

But Mercedes builds several cars which are quick and grippy without being especially sporty. The Crossfire is like that. The major controls seem several degrees of separation away from the things they are controlling, so adjustments to the brakes, steering and throttle produce results which are considerable without being immediate. There is no sense of pin-sharp precision.

Stuttgart Set-Up

As long as you're not expecting the Crossfire to feel like a road-going racer, this is no bad thing. It feels very secure and comfortable in the same way (and almost certainly for the same reasons) as a well set-up Mercedes saloon.

It has none of the practicality of a saloon, of course. The luggage area is tiny and has an amazingly narrow access area, most of the width at the rear being taken up by the huge wings. The Crossfire is also a two-seater with just about enough room for two large adults, who have to peer through a very small glass area. The rear window in particular is tiny, and the view through it is further restricted by about a third at speeds above 60mph, when a spoiler unfolds itself from the rear bodywork.

Chrysler points out that at 80mph this spoiler creates 356 Newtons of downforce, which is a splendidly scientific way of putting it; on our planet (which is presumably where most sales will be achieved) this translates into about 35kg, so you would get roughly the same effect by putting a couple of bags of coal in the boot. Still, it's something to talk about in the pub.

So, incidentally, is the fact that this very American car not only includes a large proportion of European components - it's also built over here. No existing DaimlerChrysler factory could cope with producing the Crossfire on top of everything else, so the job was put out to tender and eventually given to Karmann in Germany.

This Time, The Auto

There are, at present, very few options. One is special paint, at £400. The other is the choice of a six-speed manual or a five-speed automatic gearbox. Despite favouring manuals most of the time, I'd go for the auto in the Crossfire. The manual change is pretty sturdy and requires far more physical effort than any of the other major controls. If you leave the auto to its own devices it obviously doesn't need any effort at all, and even if you go for the over-ride option (rather unfortunately titled AutoStick - a trademarked name, like anyone else would want to steal it) this transparently Mercedes-derived sideways-flick system works with appropriately gentle finger pressure.

The figures in front of me suggest that the auto does not make the Crossfire suffer in performance terms, and that contrary to expectations it actually improves the fuel economy (28.0mpg combined versus 27.2mpg) and CO2 emissions (240g/km against 256g/km) figures. There's no obvious reason for this, and I can't help remembering that Chrysler made itself look very silly a few years ago when it claimed that the automatic version of the original Neon accelerated much more quickly than the manual, even though this clearly wasn't the case.

But there it is. In price terms, we're back on familiar territory with the manual being cheaper at £27,260 and the auto costing £28,500.

This is academic for the moment. If you want a Crossfire and you've not already bought one you're going to have to join a waiting list. It's possible that Chrysler may increase the UK allocation in the same way - but not to the same extent - as it did with the PT Cruiser. But its real aim is to make the Crossfire what is described in the industry as the "halo" car for the rest of the Chrysler brand, and to a large extent it had already succeeded in doing that even before the first right-hand drive car came off the production line.

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