The Chrysler Chronos Was A Vision Of 21st Century Luxury With A V10 Heart

This is your annual reminder that Chrysler still exists. Sure, it’s spent the last few years limited to the North American market, selling a single vehicle – the Pacifica minivan – but the brand that was once one of the most recognisable names in the US is still ambling along, that big rebirth perennially just around the corner.

The last few decades at the company have been characterised by lots of ambition, but a lack of means to actually do anything with it beyond some headline-grabbing concept cars. There’ve been loads, from 2004’s V12-powered ME Four-Twelve supercar to last year’s Halcyon, a madly-doored tech-fest seemingly designed for no other reason than to say ‘hey, we’re still here!’.

Today, we want to look at another one, though: 1998’s Chronos. This was a svelte 1950s American luxury saloon, reimagined for the new century that was just around the corner. It also drew inspiration from the d’Elegance, a 1953 Chrysler coupe concept with styling by Italian design house Ghia. From most angles, it was a pretty staggering thing: the thrusting bonnet, the chopped-down roofline, the muscular haunches. It looked purposeful.

The inside, too, was a melding of past and future. Plush leather and polished wood, yes, but also some of the big, monolithic aluminium surfacing that was beginning to define the era’s concept cars.

It looked excellent. Until you got round to the front, that is. That grille… yeesh. 1998 was also the year the production Jaguar S-Type was unveiled, and looking at the two, you’d almost think some misguided corporate espionage had gone on, only with the Chrysler taking a more American – i.e. bigger – approach to the whole puckered circle of chrome thing.

Still, that was one major blemish on an otherwise very handsome car, and there was more intrigue beneath that gigantic bonnet. Unlike the cars that inspired it, the Chronos didn’t have a straight-six or even a V8, but a 6.0-litre V10. Apparently created by hacking up a couple of Jeep Cherokee V8s, it was said to be good for about 350bhp.

A fully functional vehicle, something similar was supposedly being drawn up for production. 1998, though, was also the year that Chrysler entered its ill-fated merger with Mercedes, and apparently there was concern about a big, powerful luxury saloon like this encroaching on Merc’s turf, so the project was killed before it had any real momentum.

Elements of its design, though, did find their way into production a few years later on – drum roll please – the 300C. As one of this big, characterful saloon’s few staunch defenders, I’m not about to mock it and call it an underwhelming, poorly-made Bentley wannabe leaning on a company’s past glories (whoops), but it’s nonetheless sad we didn’t instead get a full-on luxury car from Chrysler, complete with 10 big, thumping cylinders. Another one to add to the pile marked ‘what could have been’, then.