CHRYSLER 300C 3.0 V6 CRD 5dr Auto (2006)

Beautiful machine! Solid, sturdy, the business.

My main reason for looking into this car in the first place is that it's not YET ANOTHER Audi, BMW, Merc yawn yawn etc etc. The idiots who drive those are getting so annoying now, I felt I had to break away. The Chrysler 300C certainly provided that, I don't know anyone who owns one and I've only ever seen one other one (in five years), and that was in France.

The car itself is a dream, I can hardly fault it. I just never want to get out of it when I'm driving. The comfort factor is immense, the style inside is second to none, the power and pull are huge, and actually it's pretty economical for what it is (about 35 MPG, better on motorways). Tax and insurance are a bit high compared to my wife's runaround, but that's to be expected. It's also a whole lot cheaper to buy in the first place than it looks. I mean it kind of looks like a Rolls, but a fraction of the cost.

Compared to that little dinky toy, the 300C can be a bit tough to get used to in terms of its dimensions. The car is pretty huge and the visibility isn't all that great as the windows are a bit high up. I got used to it quickly enough though. There are the beeping parking sensors mind, which helps a lot in working out how close things are to the tail end. Having said that, all the sensors in the world don't help when you're stuck doing a 20 point turn in a multi storey! The space isn't wasted though, it is just enormous inside. It's done some very big loads before, perhaps the biggest being all the slate tiles for our new garden patio, as well as some bits of garden furniture. It's difficult to describe just how huge it is inside, but suffice it to say that Audis and the other pretenders feel like they're wasting lots of space by comparison.

The controls inside are fantastic. The sat nav, stereo and air vents can all be controlled easily right from the steering wheel, and I've never felt overwhelmed by all the techy bits inside. The heated seats are a great luxury in the winter, very welcome. My only real complaint about the inside is that the buttons in the central panel for the aircon and the stereo do look a little bit ordinary, not too naff just not quite in keeping with the rest of the car, which is massively classy. The speed dials are very stylish, quite understated as well, none of this silly toy car red-backlit rubbish.

I've had a couple of minor things go wrong with it over the years but by and large it's been incredibly reliable. It had a few electrical faults and something with the transmission, but they were reasonably quickly dealt with.