Yahoo Autos At $4,500, Is This 2004 Chrysler Crossfire Firmly A Bargain?
The seller of today’s Nice Price or No Dice Crossfire will not respond to emails, demanding interested parties text or phone to ask about the car. Let’s decide if the price they’ve set is worth making the call.
In his Saturday Night Live skit, Fernando’s Hideaway, Billy Crystal created a character that espoused that it is “better to look good than to feel good.” Last Friday’s 1977 Lotus Esprit S1 likely felt better than it looked, seeing as, while it had undergone a mechanical refresh not that many years back, its age-worn aesthetics had been left untouched. At a $28,000 asking, the majority of you felt the car needed to encompass a complete body and soul renewal, thus faulting that price tag with a 60 percent No Dice loss.
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This Crossfire is, in fact, a Mercedes-Benz under its iconic early-aughts period dress, albeit a hand-me-down platform that the German company already felt was out of date. Introduced for the 2004 model year, the Crossfire shares the vast majority of its chassis and running gear with the R170 Mercedes SLK. The thing of it is, at that exact time, Mercedes was on the verge of replacing the R170 with the re-engineered R171 SLK, leaving the Crossfire to soldier on alone with the older platform. Is that necessarily a bad thing now? Oh, hell no. It’s just kind of rude when you think about it. While branded as a Chrysler and carrying Mercedes mechanicals, all Crossfires were built under contract by the German coachbuilder Karmann.
Power for the Crossfire comes from a 3.2-liter Mercedes (of course) M112 V6 offering 215 horsepower and 229 lb-ft of torque. In this car, that’s mated to the standard equipment (and also Mercedes) six-speed manual. The car is rear-wheel drive, utilizing Mercedes’ multi-link rear suspension and a standard un-equal length A-arm front end. Disc brakes are fitted all around.
According to the ad, this Crossfire “RUNS PERFECT AND FAST.” The ad also notes that it comes with a clean title and just 128,000 miles on the clock. Mechanically, the seller says it “NEEDS NOTHING… JUST DRIVE AND GO.”
Aesthetically, the car’s a bit of a mixed bag. The bodywork shows some scratches and scrapes in the also weathered black paint. That black hue has also been invited to the party on the factory wheels, as well as to the formerly silver windshield surround that has some other cosmetic issues going on.
