SA Road Tests

Welcome

This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
*To read one of our road tests, just select from the menu on the left. Hover your cursor over the manufacturer's name, then choose from the drop-down menu.
*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.


We meet Chrysler’s 300 SRT8, and learn respect

Published in Witness Wheels on Thursday August 1, 2013

Not for the hired help

Interior pic by author, others by Quickpic

Within the Family you have muscle in the form of the 300C 3.0 diesel; the trusted lieutenant with its 3.6-litre V6 and The Boss. He runs a 392-cubic inch hemi-head V8 putting out 470 horsepower and 470 pound-feet of torque. For metricised people, that’s 6.4 litres, 347 kW and 631 Nm. An old school 16-valver with cast iron block and multiport fuel injection, it sprints to 100 km/h in around five seconds and does the standing quarter mile in just under thirteen.

Dual overhead cams? Go wash out your mouth! Overhead valves are all it needs. There is one concession to modern sensitivities though; multi displacement technology shuts off four cylinders at about 100 km/h to conserve fuel, although the power kicks in again, seamlessly, when its driver demands it. A green led reading ECO switches on when the motor is in conservation mode. We did manage to get it to light up while driving gently at speeds as low as 60 km/h, but not often.

It also has specialised equipment from SRT – that’s Street and Racing Technologies, Chrysler Corporation’s high performance group. Not available to the hired help, there are auto and sport driving modes, and adaptive suspension that switches styles for commuting and spirited driving. You also have an SRT performance-tuned, hydraulic steering system with a heavy duty pump and revised gearing to give drivers a more direct feel and on-centre response.

For serious use, sets of virtual gauges can be called up from the SRT Plus menu. These include timers and a G-force meter, temperature gauges for coolant, oil, intake air and transmission, plus oil pressure and battery voltage.

Then the weight distribution is sorted, giving a very useful front-to-rear balance of 51:49 percent. Brakes are ventilated discs; 360x32mm in front and 350x28mm at the back, with four-piston Brembo calipers. They stop the car from 100 km/h in 35 metres. They’re painted silver, not red, because that would just be cheap and flashy. 

A more formal suit completes the look. Trim is in body colour rather than chrome, a pair of four-inch pipes jut out from the underskirt, a proper tail spoiler replaces the built-in lip on the boot lid, a black honeycomb grille adds a touch of menace and 20” black vapour chrome wheels are shod with 245/45 ZR rated tyres. It also sits one inch closer to the pavement. Just so you can be sure to recognise it, a discreet SRT8 badge is fitted to the boot lid.

We have been through this car’s pedigree a few times already, so you know about the suspension, differential, ESP and five-speed gearbox that came straight out of various Mercedes’. Then there are the improvements listed above. Let us simply say that, despite its size, this thing performs and handles. Out on our favourite twisty country road, it accelerated like a demon and hung on surprisingly well.

The ride is somewhat firmer than we are used to on lesser 300Cs; some might complain, but we accepted it as part of this Boss Machine’s character and found it reassuring. Our only disappointment is that its V8 growl is too muted, too iron fist in velvet glove. Give us the bone-shaking rumble of titanium fist in no glove at all; like on the AMG or Chevy’s Lumina. But then maybe The Boss don’t-a need to shout loud, eh?

Test car from Chrysler SA press fleet

The numbers
Price: R664 990
Engine: 6417 cc, OHV, V8
Power: 347 kW at 6100 rpm
Torque: 631 Nm at 4150 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 5,2 seconds
Maximum speed: 280 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: About 15,6 l/100 km
Tank: 72 litres
Boot: 481 litres

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that every car reviewed is given my personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every test car goes through real world driving; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

I do my best to include relevant information like real life fuel economy or a close mathematical calculation, boot size or luggage space, whether the space is both usable and accessible, whether life-sized people can use the back seat (where that applies), basic specs of the vehicle and performance figures if they are published. In the case of clearly identified launch reports, fuel figures are of necessity the laboratory numbers provided with the release material. If I ever place an article that doesn't cover most things, it's probably because I have dealt with that vehicle at least once already, so you will be able to find what you want in another report under the same manufacturer's heading in the menu on the left.

My reviews and launch reports appear on Thursdays in the Wheels supplement to The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles each month, most months of the year (except over the festive season) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police.

Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so they can see I do actually exist.

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