A big American luxury sedan, 20" wheels and Beats by Dre on the stereo, it doesn't get much more imported from Detroit than this Chrysler 300x.
Let's hop behind the wheel of this 2014 model and check the tech.
Now, this is a luxury [UNKNOWN] Sedan, so it's no surprise that the interior is nicely appointed.
There are a couple of spots here and there where it kinda seems like Chrysler's cheaped out a little bit on the materials, but in general, everywhere that you the driver come into contact with this vehicle.
Steering wheel, particularly the blue leather seats that are gonna match nicely with our jazz blue exterior.
They all feel really good, and well put together.
Now, one point that you come in the contact with a car regularly that I don't really like is this electronic shifter.
Now, it looks like your standard T-shape shifter, but instead of staying where you put it, it actually returns to neutral once you've pulled it down to reverse or to drive, kind of like BMW's do.
And it's a little bit difficult to tell exactly what gear you're gonna land in if you have to quickly, for example, go from drive to reverse when parallel parking.
More often than not you end up in neutral or even worse, in park.
Now one of the parts of this vehicle that stands out the most is the standard at this S trim level Beats Audio system.
It's got those big red B badges on all the speakers.
It's 552 watts spread through about ten speakers including one subwoofer in the trunk.
And it's a pretty good sounding system.
I know Beats gets a bit of a bad rap for being not very good sounding for as much as they cost, but in this car it's a pretty good mix.
In the dashboard, we've got Chrysler's Uconnect 8.4 Infotainment system.
And it looks like all of the Uconnect systems we've seen across the Chrysler brand.
But they're not all created equally.
This is actually an earlier version of the software, I believe.
And what leads me to believe that is that the rerouting algorithms on this need to take about twice as long as they did in the Dodge vehicles that we've driven recently.
Which actually do have the newest version of UConnect.
This car's also lacking the sort of in car wi-fi hotspot, a lot of the UConnect apps, the actual connected part of UConnect.
Now under the hood this 300 S is going to be powered by a 300 horsepower version of Chrysler's 3.6 liter V6 engine.
It's a couple of extra ponies over the standard 300 thanks to a sport exhaust.
Now this is paired with an eight speed automatic transmission.
This is a good gear box.
It gives us good crisp.
Shifts that are quick but they're also smooth so there's not a lot of jerking around of the vehicle when you're changing gears with these paddle shifters.
Now the 3.6 is only available with this eight speed automatic.
You jump up to the V8, you actually drop down to a, I think a five speed automatic transmission that's not that great.
If you have to have your V8, that's definitely a time you're gonna want to wait.
For next year's 2015 model because it's gonna be upgraded with that eight speed automatic also.
It's gonna help it get a little bit better fuel economy as well.
Okay, let's price this 2014 Chrysler 300 S. $34,395 is gonna get you out of the door on this S model, which is about middle of the range [INAUDIBLE] But we've got a couple of options that are gonna be worth considering.
The first is gonna be that UConnect navigation system, which is good for getting you from Point A to Point B. But we're pretty sure it's going to be improved next year.
So, if that's what you're looking for, maybe hold off for a little bit.
We've also got a safety tech package that's looking a little bit sparse for a car of this model year.
Add a couple extra odds and ends and we're looking at an adjusted price of $40,870.
[MUSIC]
