Holden Out For More: Two Big Sedans Flex Their Muscles
By Michael Febbo | Photos By Julia LaPalme | From the April 2014 issue of Motor Trend
For several years, the Chrysler 300 SRT has gone mostly unchallenged in the luxo-muscle category. You could say cars with AMG, RS or M badges were playing with the same formula, but the European competitors are far more James Bond than John McLane in both price and presence. GM has built a competitor for years, but it lived on a different continent. While it managed to sneak over for a few years as a Pontiac, it apparently has trouble consistently finding its way across the ocean.
This is one of the more in-depth performance comparisons I've done, putting more than 1000 miles on each car over two weeks. We commuted, did family weekend duty as well as bring them to our drag strip, figure-eight, a road course and even using our Car Of The Year road loop. We drove in everything from sunny 70 degree Huntington Beach sunshine, to near freezing and even pouring rain. We got everything but a blizzard or zombie apocalypse.
Starting with the very basics, both cars here are big sedans, the smaller Chevy still stretches 195.5 inches from stem to stern. The Chrysler is roughly 5 inches longer and its 4387 pounds is 474 pounds more portly than the SS. Both are rear wheel drive and make their power with pushrod V-8s, the SS a 415 hp and 415 lb-ft of torque 6.2 liter LS3 and the SRT sporting a 470 hp and 470 lb-ft 6.4 liter 392 HEMI monster. Behind the bellhousing is a 6-speed auto in the SS, which sounds shockingly archaic until we talk about the 5-speed in the Chrysler. Especially surprising when you consider the rest of the tech the 300 is packing.
The window sticker on this particular 300 SRT should have come with a warning. The $45,770 of the SS didn't shock anyone, while the $61,570 for the SRT nearly knocked us over. The SS is well equipped with navigation, heated seats, blind spot warning, all the usual suspects, but the Chrysler adds things like adaptive cruise control and active suspension that aren't even options on the Chevy. The 300 also has nearly $5500 in interior upgrades that could easily be skipped without a second thought and that would shave that price gap down quite a bit. The last point of economic interest is the $1300 gas-guzzler tax on the SS compared to the $1000 tacked onto the SRT. We would go into the fuel economy, but if you really care about that, you're looking at the wrong cars. Let's talk speed instead.
At the drag strip, the SRT's extra ponies get a little more work done than the SS, even if just by a nose. The SRT beats the SS's 4.6 second run from 0-60mph by 0.2 seconds and continues to be faster until just after 80 mph were the SS starts to catch back up. The SRT barely holds on in the quarter-mile, running a 12.9 to the Chevy's 13.0. On the way back down from 60, the SS shocks the SRT, stopping in a sports-car-like 105 feet, 8 shorter than the Chrysler. The figure eight also favored the SS by a considerable margin, 24.8 seconds compared to 25.2 despite the extra HEMI-thrust.
More notable, was Kim Reynold's assertion that "this was barely a comparison, the SS is in an entirely different league dynamically." During my figure-eight laps, I was less concerned with times and more with the enjoyment factor. The big SRT fully lives up to its muscle car persona with giant smoky power slides. Apparently SRT stands for Shreds Rear Tires. It isn't precise and it isn't refined, but man is it fun. The 300 SRT should be standard issue for every Hollywood car chase. The SS will sideways roast tires as well, but it so much more controlled and graceful. The biggest difference is choice. The SS can be driven like a true sports car, neat, tidy and fast; pick a line and use it. You can feed in power with a watchmaker's precision or hammer it like carving a sundial out of stone. Either way is just as enjoyable in the Chevy, while trying to get a smooth and tight lap in the Chrysler is an exercise in frustration and futility.
We took both cars out to The Streets of Willow racetrack to let our own Randy Pobst see how they compared. Associate Online Editor Benson Kong and I also put in a fair number of laps and the three of us came to the same conclusion at the track as Mr. Reynolds: the SS is in a completely different league. While I enjoy driving the SRT, it feels more like an old police cruiser than a sports sedan. Everything feels so detached and far away from the driver. All four corners act like they're hanging out on flexible rods with the driver suspended in the middle. The car flexes and twists and the movements don't feel nearly as controlled. Undulations cause the car to float in the air and it never feels planted. The steering has a dead spot on center and then a quick build up in effort and reaction.
As Randy explained "initial turn-in is good, but then it transitions to understeer almost immediately. If I had to rate it, I'd give it a 6/10 in understeer. It's irritating." On the Pobst understeer scale, lower is better. Randy felt the drivetrain wasn't as good on the track either "it feels like it has a fatter torque curve, but the tall gearing makes it feel lazy." It wasn't much better slowing down than speeding up, "the brakes seem to go away pretty quick and it feels disconcerting. The ABS is overactive and once the car gets light over bumps, you have very little braking power. The SRT hates the kink at the end of the back straight because it's all about stability in a difficult situation."
I had basically the same thoughts as Randy, but my experience was maybe more difficult. Randy gets in a car and feels comfortable in two corners while I require a few laps. I quickly found the understeer frustrating and it took me a while to feel comfortable forcefully rotating the car on throttle. You have to pick up the throttle early and overpower the rear tires to make it turn. The problem is, since you're already overpowering the rear-end to turn, you can't get much down to accelerate out of the turn. The option is go slower into the turn to minimize understeer, then be patient with the throttle and feed it in on exit to keep the back-end hooked up. I was even less confident through the kink than Randy: Although in most rear wheel drive cars I worry about flying off the road backwards, I kept getting a mental image of the SRT going straight off the end in a combo plate of nonresponsive understeer and ABS intervention.
The SS, while appearing on paper to have the technological handicap, shines on the track. Randy's comments were a series of "greats" followed by whatever component he was showering praise upon. "The brakes are so solid, exactly the same in the last corner of the last lap as the first corner of the first lap. I feel so comfortable and it gives me so much confidence. Turn-in is beautiful and mid-corner has a little understeer but nothing like the SRT, a 3/10 at most, and then just such gentle and controllable oversteer on exit."
I felt as though I could put the SS anywhere I wanted and keep it there. The SS carves a tight, controlled line. In the SRT I needed a lot of space as the car was flung around and rotated. Even sliding the back-end around didn't tighten up the line, it just rotated as the whole car slurred towards the outside curb. The natural track ability of the SS was backed up by lap times, the SRT turning a decent 1:27.74 compared to the SS's 1:25.71, those 2.0 seconds are huge on Streets. The only complaint either of us had with the SS was a complete and total absence of lateral support in the seats. They look great, but you may as well be standing on your left leg while driving and save the weight of the seat.
I do acknowledge that most owners of these cars will never see a track day. The point is, if you did want to, the SS is fully capable, while you probably wouldn't want to try it in the SRT. I say that from both a dynamics standpoint and knowing that the SRT won't go a few laps without its brakes overheating.
Lessons learned on the track sometimes don't translate to the road. In this case, most of them do. On the highway, the same dead spot we found in the Chrysler's steering made it feel ponderous on the highway. It floated around and required constant correction. The size is also constantly apparent. The nose swings way out in front of you and the trunk feels like a trailer forced to follow. Driving spiritedly on the road finds you aiming the nose in the direction you want to go and waiting to get on the gas until the car finds the right heading. The road manners made Kong wonder if 300 SRT customers even care about handling. "If I could guess the factors that led to a 300 SRT purchase, I'd go with (a) the 300's exterior attitude, (b) the 6.4-liter HEMI's pull and sense of urgency, (c) the HEMI's sound, (d) did I already go with attitude?" In contrast, the SS shrink-wraps itself around the driver. Every motion feels like it's happening to the driver, not at a distance as in the SRT. Turn-in involves the entire car. The front and rear of the car respond together and the car's first response is a rotation around the center. In short, the SS feels like a proper sports sedan.
We expected the Chrysler to run away with the highway cruising crown, but it didn't work out that way. The SS is slightly quieter with less wind- and road-noise. The Chrysler seems to wander around more, requiring more attention just to keep it going straight down the road. Even with the adjustable suspension, the 300 never out-comforts or out-sports the SS. According to SAE data the SS's interior even measures as slightly bigger than the 300's in just about every dimension. The only notable difference on paper is almost 2 inches more headroom for the front seat occupants of the SS. This was immediately obvious with my 6-foot 2-inch frame. Otherwise, the 300 just feels cramped and tight. The high shoulderline and mail slot windows might trigger claustrophobia. Even with the upgraded interior option in the 300, it doesn't feel more premium than the SS. The dash and center stack are nothing special, while glare on the Chrysler's infotainment screen makes it nearly unusable in bright conditions. The SS on the other hand feels purposeful and to the point, there's nothing flashy but it's well built, well trimmed and everything is logically placed. Some of the shiny plastic trim, like the completely pointless tabs on the seats could be removed, but overall we were left very impressed.
The shiny plastic bits abound on the outside of the SS as well. While Benson and I both appreciated the athletic shape of the SS; big fenders, hunkered-down-and-wide stance, we were both turned off by the brightwork. GM please stop with the shiny wheels and the plasti-chrome trim. Even with that said, I still like it more than the suburban-gangster-look of the SRT. Looks however are all subjective, so make your own decision.
In the end, we picked the SS as the car we would buy if it were our money. The Chrysler 300 SRT is a blast, but only in the right circumstances. I really only enjoyed driving the car when I was doing something illegal, and what would also be expensive, smoky acts in a closed environment. If you said "who would ever take these to the track?" while reading that section, then ask yourself how often you have a chance to do big smoky drifts and not worry about the law or the price of rear tires.
The SS is an excellent car in every situation, whether on the racetrack, your favorite driving road, or just cruising down the highway or to work. I want a car that I can enjoy driving anywhere, not one I wish I could enjoy driving somewhere.
By Michael Febbo | Photos By Julia LaPalme | From the April 2014 issue of Motor Trend
For several years, the Chrysler 300 SRT has gone mostly unchallenged in the luxo-muscle category. You could say cars with AMG, RS or M badges were playing with the same formula, but the European competitors are far more James Bond than John McLane in both price and presence. GM has built a competitor for years, but it lived on a different continent. While it managed to sneak over for a few years as a Pontiac, it apparently has trouble consistently finding its way across the ocean.
This is one of the more in-depth performance comparisons I've done, putting more than 1000 miles on each car over two weeks. We commuted, did family weekend duty as well as bring them to our drag strip, figure-eight, a road course and even using our Car Of The Year road loop. We drove in everything from sunny 70 degree Huntington Beach sunshine, to near freezing and even pouring rain. We got everything but a blizzard or zombie apocalypse.
Starting with the very basics, both cars here are big sedans, the smaller Chevy still stretches 195.5 inches from stem to stern. The Chrysler is roughly 5 inches longer and its 4387 pounds is 474 pounds more portly than the SS. Both are rear wheel drive and make their power with pushrod V-8s, the SS a 415 hp and 415 lb-ft of torque 6.2 liter LS3 and the SRT sporting a 470 hp and 470 lb-ft 6.4 liter 392 HEMI monster. Behind the bellhousing is a 6-speed auto in the SS, which sounds shockingly archaic until we talk about the 5-speed in the Chrysler. Especially surprising when you consider the rest of the tech the 300 is packing.
The window sticker on this particular 300 SRT should have come with a warning. The $45,770 of the SS didn't shock anyone, while the $61,570 for the SRT nearly knocked us over. The SS is well equipped with navigation, heated seats, blind spot warning, all the usual suspects, but the Chrysler adds things like adaptive cruise control and active suspension that aren't even options on the Chevy. The 300 also has nearly $5500 in interior upgrades that could easily be skipped without a second thought and that would shave that price gap down quite a bit. The last point of economic interest is the $1300 gas-guzzler tax on the SS compared to the $1000 tacked onto the SRT. We would go into the fuel economy, but if you really care about that, you're looking at the wrong cars. Let's talk speed instead.
At the drag strip, the SRT's extra ponies get a little more work done than the SS, even if just by a nose. The SRT beats the SS's 4.6 second run from 0-60mph by 0.2 seconds and continues to be faster until just after 80 mph were the SS starts to catch back up. The SRT barely holds on in the quarter-mile, running a 12.9 to the Chevy's 13.0. On the way back down from 60, the SS shocks the SRT, stopping in a sports-car-like 105 feet, 8 shorter than the Chrysler. The figure eight also favored the SS by a considerable margin, 24.8 seconds compared to 25.2 despite the extra HEMI-thrust.
More notable, was Kim Reynold's assertion that "this was barely a comparison, the SS is in an entirely different league dynamically." During my figure-eight laps, I was less concerned with times and more with the enjoyment factor. The big SRT fully lives up to its muscle car persona with giant smoky power slides. Apparently SRT stands for Shreds Rear Tires. It isn't precise and it isn't refined, but man is it fun. The 300 SRT should be standard issue for every Hollywood car chase. The SS will sideways roast tires as well, but it so much more controlled and graceful. The biggest difference is choice. The SS can be driven like a true sports car, neat, tidy and fast; pick a line and use it. You can feed in power with a watchmaker's precision or hammer it like carving a sundial out of stone. Either way is just as enjoyable in the Chevy, while trying to get a smooth and tight lap in the Chrysler is an exercise in frustration and futility.
We took both cars out to The Streets of Willow racetrack to let our own Randy Pobst see how they compared. Associate Online Editor Benson Kong and I also put in a fair number of laps and the three of us came to the same conclusion at the track as Mr. Reynolds: the SS is in a completely different league. While I enjoy driving the SRT, it feels more like an old police cruiser than a sports sedan. Everything feels so detached and far away from the driver. All four corners act like they're hanging out on flexible rods with the driver suspended in the middle. The car flexes and twists and the movements don't feel nearly as controlled. Undulations cause the car to float in the air and it never feels planted. The steering has a dead spot on center and then a quick build up in effort and reaction.
As Randy explained "initial turn-in is good, but then it transitions to understeer almost immediately. If I had to rate it, I'd give it a 6/10 in understeer. It's irritating." On the Pobst understeer scale, lower is better. Randy felt the drivetrain wasn't as good on the track either "it feels like it has a fatter torque curve, but the tall gearing makes it feel lazy." It wasn't much better slowing down than speeding up, "the brakes seem to go away pretty quick and it feels disconcerting. The ABS is overactive and once the car gets light over bumps, you have very little braking power. The SRT hates the kink at the end of the back straight because it's all about stability in a difficult situation."
I had basically the same thoughts as Randy, but my experience was maybe more difficult. Randy gets in a car and feels comfortable in two corners while I require a few laps. I quickly found the understeer frustrating and it took me a while to feel comfortable forcefully rotating the car on throttle. You have to pick up the throttle early and overpower the rear tires to make it turn. The problem is, since you're already overpowering the rear-end to turn, you can't get much down to accelerate out of the turn. The option is go slower into the turn to minimize understeer, then be patient with the throttle and feed it in on exit to keep the back-end hooked up. I was even less confident through the kink than Randy: Although in most rear wheel drive cars I worry about flying off the road backwards, I kept getting a mental image of the SRT going straight off the end in a combo plate of nonresponsive understeer and ABS intervention.
The SS, while appearing on paper to have the technological handicap, shines on the track. Randy's comments were a series of "greats" followed by whatever component he was showering praise upon. "The brakes are so solid, exactly the same in the last corner of the last lap as the first corner of the first lap. I feel so comfortable and it gives me so much confidence. Turn-in is beautiful and mid-corner has a little understeer but nothing like the SRT, a 3/10 at most, and then just such gentle and controllable oversteer on exit."
I felt as though I could put the SS anywhere I wanted and keep it there. The SS carves a tight, controlled line. In the SRT I needed a lot of space as the car was flung around and rotated. Even sliding the back-end around didn't tighten up the line, it just rotated as the whole car slurred towards the outside curb. The natural track ability of the SS was backed up by lap times, the SRT turning a decent 1:27.74 compared to the SS's 1:25.71, those 2.0 seconds are huge on Streets. The only complaint either of us had with the SS was a complete and total absence of lateral support in the seats. They look great, but you may as well be standing on your left leg while driving and save the weight of the seat.
I do acknowledge that most owners of these cars will never see a track day. The point is, if you did want to, the SS is fully capable, while you probably wouldn't want to try it in the SRT. I say that from both a dynamics standpoint and knowing that the SRT won't go a few laps without its brakes overheating.
Lessons learned on the track sometimes don't translate to the road. In this case, most of them do. On the highway, the same dead spot we found in the Chrysler's steering made it feel ponderous on the highway. It floated around and required constant correction. The size is also constantly apparent. The nose swings way out in front of you and the trunk feels like a trailer forced to follow. Driving spiritedly on the road finds you aiming the nose in the direction you want to go and waiting to get on the gas until the car finds the right heading. The road manners made Kong wonder if 300 SRT customers even care about handling. "If I could guess the factors that led to a 300 SRT purchase, I'd go with (a) the 300's exterior attitude, (b) the 6.4-liter HEMI's pull and sense of urgency, (c) the HEMI's sound, (d) did I already go with attitude?" In contrast, the SS shrink-wraps itself around the driver. Every motion feels like it's happening to the driver, not at a distance as in the SRT. Turn-in involves the entire car. The front and rear of the car respond together and the car's first response is a rotation around the center. In short, the SS feels like a proper sports sedan.
We expected the Chrysler to run away with the highway cruising crown, but it didn't work out that way. The SS is slightly quieter with less wind- and road-noise. The Chrysler seems to wander around more, requiring more attention just to keep it going straight down the road. Even with the adjustable suspension, the 300 never out-comforts or out-sports the SS. According to SAE data the SS's interior even measures as slightly bigger than the 300's in just about every dimension. The only notable difference on paper is almost 2 inches more headroom for the front seat occupants of the SS. This was immediately obvious with my 6-foot 2-inch frame. Otherwise, the 300 just feels cramped and tight. The high shoulderline and mail slot windows might trigger claustrophobia. Even with the upgraded interior option in the 300, it doesn't feel more premium than the SS. The dash and center stack are nothing special, while glare on the Chrysler's infotainment screen makes it nearly unusable in bright conditions. The SS on the other hand feels purposeful and to the point, there's nothing flashy but it's well built, well trimmed and everything is logically placed. Some of the shiny plastic trim, like the completely pointless tabs on the seats could be removed, but overall we were left very impressed.
The shiny plastic bits abound on the outside of the SS as well. While Benson and I both appreciated the athletic shape of the SS; big fenders, hunkered-down-and-wide stance, we were both turned off by the brightwork. GM please stop with the shiny wheels and the plasti-chrome trim. Even with that said, I still like it more than the suburban-gangster-look of the SRT. Looks however are all subjective, so make your own decision.
In the end, we picked the SS as the car we would buy if it were our money. The Chrysler 300 SRT is a blast, but only in the right circumstances. I really only enjoyed driving the car when I was doing something illegal, and what would also be expensive, smoky acts in a closed environment. If you said "who would ever take these to the track?" while reading that section, then ask yourself how often you have a chance to do big smoky drifts and not worry about the law or the price of rear tires.
The SS is an excellent car in every situation, whether on the racetrack, your favorite driving road, or just cruising down the highway or to work. I want a car that I can enjoy driving anywhere, not one I wish I could enjoy driving somewhere.
Win for the SS
$60k price tag. Jeeeezus
