First Drive Review
Car and Driver readers know we're fans of the Chrysler 300 and its cousin, the Dodge Magnum. The 300 has made it onto our 10Best Cars list three years running, and we liked our long-term Dodge Magnum even after a moment of whimsy led us to cram 22-inch wheels into the fenders and modify the front doors to open Lamborghini-style—out and up.
In Switzerland for the Geneva auto show, we took the opportunity to sample a flavor of 300 not available in the U.S., the 300/Magnum mutt known in Europe as the 300 Touring. Whereas "Touring" is a trim level on 300s sold in the U.S., in Europe, a 300 Touring is a wagon. Americans will recognize this car as a Magnum wearing 300 front sheetmetal. We went with a Hemi-powered car for chasing the endless stream of Audi S and RS wagons, both 4 and 6 variants, that comprise a surprising percentage of European traffic, but that turned out to be unnecessary. The Swiss never seem to be in a hurry.
All-wheel drive was a good safety measure, as our hotel—about an hour from the auto show—was perched high in the Alps, and we didn't want to get trapped in any Man vs. Wild snowstorms. Of course, that meant it was harder to use oversteer as a handling aid on the tight mountain switchbacks, but the security was welcome and the all-wheel drive possibly saved our lives when we chased a sunset halfway up a muddy mountain two-track. We didn't catch the sunset, but we returned to paved roads intact.
Not surprisingly, we enjoyed the 300C Touring. For such a big car, it proved quite adept at navigating the unpredictable curves and elevation changes between the autoroute and our hotel on Mont Pelerin. Starting with the chassis that helped land this car on our 10Best list, Chrysler tunes European 300s with a slightly stiffer suspension and a quicker steering ratio for better feedback and control at the higher speeds one might encounter on the autoroutes of countries other than impartial Switzerland.
Having said that, we declare that if the roads surrounding our Michigan offices were serpentine Alpine switchbacks, there would be no Chrysler 300 on our 10Best list. In fact, there would be no vehicle on the list larger than the 3-series. Imagine how crowded the roads would be if all your neighbors drove school buses. In rural Switzerland, the school bus we most frequently saw was the Mercedes (Dodge in the U.S.) Sprinter, a vehicle only 0.1 inch wider than our 300. There's a reason for that. The roads in these parts are tight. So tight that just turning from the street into our hotel driveway was a three-point turn. So tight that twice we had to back into a driveway just to let an oncoming vehicle pass. When we took the Chrysler to an automatic carwash, the attendant was horrified but willing to experiment. So were we, and we got lucky. The locals in their Fiat Pandas and Peugeot 207s looked at us like we were nuts, but stylish nuts.
