Same Name Covers All-New Chrysler 200
Stylish new Chrysler 200 is built on an Alfa Romeo platform.
By John Gilbert
If you ran a pro football team and wanted to compete in the National Football League, you’d be well-advised to have a quarterback. Or if you were sending a Major League baseball team onto the field to start the season, you will need a solid starting pitcher.
Chrysler understands the analogies, by living the automotive equivalent — trying to compete in the auto business without a midsize car. Since one out of six new vehicles are selected from that largest segment in the United States, Chrysler can empathize with that football team without a quarterback or baseball team without a pitcher. (It’s just coincidence that it might seem we’re specifically comparing cars to recent seasons by the Minnesota Vikings or Minnesota Twins.)
- The new 200, which will start with a base price of $21,700, has no resemblance whatsoever to the existing 200, representing such a departure that I asked why the same name was retained. They responded with a few market-speak lines about the value of “name recognition,” similar to what Dodge officials said when their all-new vehicle was born under a resuscitated Dart name, after a previous but pretty much unloved compact sedan.
There is no question how impressive the Dart’s styling and technology is, and how special the new 200 will be for Chrysler. The comparison to the Dart, incidentally, is well-founded, because the 200 shares the underpinnings with Dart of the Alfa Romeo Giulietta — a platform Chrysler officials have praised as the best and most versatile the company has ever used, and one which can be adjusted any direction for length and width.
Harmonious connection of contours sets apart the rear quarter view of the 200.
When the style-conscious Fiat folks guided Chrysler into its midsize venture, they didn’t mess around. The 200 is larger than the compact Dart, which takes on the Honda Civic, Mazda3, Toyota Corolla, Chevrolet Cruze, Ford Focus, Volkswagen Jetta, and Nissan Versa. The 200, meanwhile, is taking on the big boys, such as the Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Mazda6, Ford Fusion, Chevrolet Malibu, Nissan Altima and Volkswagen Passat.
In order to wade into that competition, Chrysler was required to nail everything from design to comfort, to technology, to creature features, and to performance, not necessarily in that order. If the plan was to hit one out of the park, Chrysler picked wisely in its location for the introduction: Louisville, Kentucky, home of the Louisville Slugger baseball bat company, with the actual presentation at Louisville Slugger Stadium, one of the neatest and best-designed minor-league ballparks.
Without question, the 200 is stunning to look at. As you approach it, you may not have any idea what it is, except that it is obviously wearing a fresh, contemporary version of the “four-door coupe” style, with a sleek, swept-back roofline.
The 200 looks good from all angles, but the front foretells Chrysler’s new face.
The grille is low and coordinates the headlights into the lines that sweep around the front cornets. The shape apparently signals a departure for future Chrysler cars, which have leaned on the luxury/macho 300 with its squarish grille.
The new car’s debut of the face of Chrysler integrates the grille and headlight enclosure running in a horizontal design under a hood with graceful contours that point to the floating Chrysler wing emblem. Those lines wrap around to increasingly prominent contours along and over the heightened shoulders, before blending to meet that sloped rear roofline in a single flowing shape. Chrysler said the car was sculpted to recapture the long forms found on Chrysler coupes of the 1960s. Without the exorbitant rear fins, thank you.
Aesthetically, the 200’s eye-catching shape is no more impressive than the interior, which surrounds occupants with soft-touch fabrics and three different personalities. Or the powertrain options for varied performance. For example, if you choose the sportiest 200 S, or the luxurious 200 C, you can combine the optional Pentastar V6 with a unique new all-wheel-drive system to master the toughest conditions in even this Winter for the Ages.
The standard 2.4-liter MultiAir 4-cylinder continues the high-tech system from Fiat that goes beyond dual overhead camshafts to exchange the intake cam for a series of small, oil-filled tubes that link the intake valves to the exhaust cam. Every auto company is trying to unlock techniques of varying valve timing for optimum combustion, and Fiat engineers came up with MultiAir, in which the exhaust cam opens and closes the exhaust valves while also also operating the intake valves with something close to infinite overlap of valve timing. It works remarkably well on the tiny Fiat 500 engine, and the 2.4 Tigershark is the first example that the technique can be adapted to any engine. It offers surprising power and exceptional fuel economy in the Dodge Dart, Jeep Cherokee, and now the Chrysler 200.
In the 200, it is tuned to deliver 184 horsepower, with a torque peak of 173 foot-pounds, for lively front-wheel-drive performance, and it also has EPA estimates of 23 city and 36 miles per gallon in highway driving.
If more power means more, select the 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 with 295 horsepower and 262 foot-pounds of torque. EPA figures are an impressive 32 on the highway and 19 city. The power is more than adequate for the optional all-wheel-drive system that turns the good traction of front-wheel drive into optimal winter-beating all-wheel drive in the 200S and 200C, which show 18 city and 29 highway. As much as 60 percent of torque can be transferred to the rear wheels whenever acceleration or traction demands it, and the AWD system disconnects the rear axle seamlessly for economical highway cruising.
Ergonomical and appealing interior includes rotating gearshift knob.
Both impressive engines hook up to Chrysler’s new ZF 9-speed automatic transmission, a smooth-shifting unit that virtually assures you of being in the right gear range for any purpose. A rotating knob on the console governs shifting of the electronically controlled automatic, which can alter shift mapping for torque changes, kick-down needs, longitudinal and lateral acceleration, and it can detect hills, friction, and downshifting needs, as well as cruise control, and stability control. The reasoning is for the Jaguar-like shift-control knob is simply explained: It creates considerably more room for storage areas and for routing any required control lines and connections.
For those seeking more performance and control, there are paddle shifters available on the steering wheel, within thumb’s reach to upshift and downshift.
The 200 comes in four models, with the LX, the Limited, the sportiest 200S, or the premium 200C. Three distinct American city concepts are incorporated into the interior, where every imaginable connectivity gizmo is available. Open-pore wood trim also is available amid all that optional leather.
The basic 200 LX starts at a base price of $22,695, including destination, which actually represents a decrease from current 200 pricing. Moving up to the Limited adds content and makes things like a power sunroof and 18-inch wheels available as options. The sporty 200S starts at $25,490 and adds firmer suspension and a lot of blacked-out exterior body panels for a more sinister look. It also adds the opportunity to put in all-wheel drive with the V6.
The premium 200C is $1,000 more than the S and is loaded with premium features such as 6-way, heated, Nappa leather seats, 7-inch color display cluster, rear backup camera, remote start, dual zone climate control, and offers the options of a dual-pane panoramic sunroof, premium sound system, and 19-inch alloy wheels.
Four-door-coupe shape gives 200 class beyond what its $22,000 sticker implies.
New York’s Fifth Avenue is the theme for the classic black monotone in either leather or cloth, with satin chrome trim, and a linen headliner. The sophisticated class of Sausalito, California, was the inspiration for the linen and black Zen interior, which features linen embossed fabric or leather with a linen headliner. The hard-working, performance-oriented home base of Detroit led to the S model’s exclusive black with blue trim combined for seats and trim.
With 60 percent high-grade steel in the structure, the 200 has a firmly planted stance, which enhances handling through a suspension system of MacPherson struts up front and a “twist-blade” multilink rear, with special bushings and stabilizer bars that can be tuned for sportier handling. The electrically boosted steering system was a good complement for the suspension when we pushed the 200 models aggressively with both front- and all-wheel drive through some twisting roads in the Kentucky hills.
The 200 is impressive enough that if we went back to the sports analogies, Chrysler found itself a quarterback, a starting pitcher, and also maybe a wide receiver and a clean-up hitter.
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About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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