Chrysler Crossfire SRT 2005 Review

Drawing alongside as we cruised down the motorway, he wound down his window to find out exactly what kind of car it was that we were driving?

Of course he could see that it was a Chrysler Crossfire, the soft-topped roadster to be exact – but that's all he knew.

"It's the SRT," I shouted back, struggling to be heard above the roar of two high perform- ance engines.

"What's that mean?" he asked.

"246kW," I shouted back.

"Oh . . ."

The SRT (Street and Racing Technology) is the supercharged, high performance of the car. Chrysler's equivalent of HSV.

It's good for 250km/h and will tear from standstill to 100km/h in an amazing 5 seconds flat.

That's very quick.

It's faster than any HSV and, in fact, faster than a Porsche Boxster S which at $132,500 is considerably more expensive and doesn't perform anywhere near as well.

The Porsche at 206kW is good for 5.5 seconds but is not speed limited to 250km/h the way the Chrysler is.

The Coupe is a bit slower again.

Did I mention the Crossfire Roadster SRT costs $91,990 ($85,990 for the coupe)?

SRT is the mob that brought us the scintillating Dodge Viper a couple of years back.

It was created to boost the performance image of Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicles and it has done a pretty good job of doing that.

To go with the Crossfire, there will be SRT versions of the Grand Cherokee and soon to be released Chrysler 300C.

The supercharged SRT engine produces 53 per cent more power than a standard Crossfire.

The cars are built in Germany and the hand- built 3.2-litre Benz engine is paired with a five- speed sequential auto.

There's no manual and after driving the car, we can say truthfully there's no real need for one either.

With 420Nm of torque to play with, the quick changing auto does a superb job of getting the car mobile, with a nudge sideways for quick change downs.

If the original car didn't turn heads (we've never been able to work out why), this one is certainly going to make performance hungry Aussies sit up and take notice.

Of course there's a stiffer ride and less understeer to go with all this extra power, plus some huge 19 inch rubber and a neck-snapping set of dual piston brakes front and rear.

Keeping it all glued to the road is electronic stability control.

All we can say is thank God someone is producing cars with character.

Car watchers be warned, however, there's not much to distinguish the car from the standard one, apart from a small SRT badge and large fixed rear spoiler.