CHRYSLER 300 AND KAISER '54 WHAT A COMPARISON!

To find out as much as possible, namely specifications, I examined the 374-page owner’s manual in the “glove box” (which is only big enough to hold the manual and maybe a pair of glasses). The book indicated that there are three different engine levels offered in the 300, but Chrysler designers did not bother to label the engine, so I could not tell which one it was. It did not look like a “Hemi” to me, though.

What I have not told you yet is that while getting ready for this road test, I was thinking about which of my own cars to drive over to our friends’ house for the test. That is when I hit on the ridiculous idea of driving over in our “thoroughly obsolete” 1954 Kaiser Manhattan, purchased in the spring of 2004 (at 50 years old!) and comparing the two! It seemed like a wild comparison, but might provide an interesting contrast; and besides, Michigan Traveler Auto-Phile readers have already put up with worse in this column!

So, having the Kaiser Handy, I photographed the two vehicles side-by side.
Naturally, anyone who wants to try out a car jumps into the driver’s seat first, to get the “feel” of the car. The first thing I always notice with contemporary cars is the long distance to the forward edge of the windshield. In the case of the Chrysler it was a measured 40 inches from the driver’s eyes. If you have anything loose on the dashboard, and it surges forward, better figure on waiting to retrieve it when you stop! It did not really matter much comparison-wise, because the Kaiser dash did not have ANY room to hold anything on the dashboard top!

The most visually notable thing about the new Chrysler 300 is how high the windowsills seem to be on the side. It gives them an almost “gun-slot” appearance. Our friends noted that the sills did seem high, both for “elbow-rest convenience” and visibility. To me, once seated in the driver’s seat, the sill did seem a mite high. The forward location of the “B” post in the center-side of the car made it so the arm could rest on the sill, but not very far back. Visually, from the interior, my biggest complaint about the whole car was evident: It was the 300’s thick, sturdy-looking “A” post, where the front doors meet the windshield. This was easily the biggest difference between the Chrysler and the old Kaiser! Laying an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper on the dash area at the bottom of the Chrysler’s post, I could only see an inch or so of paper at each end, as viewed from the outside. Making the same test on the Kaiser, I only lost about three inches of space on the paper surface. To be fair, Chryslers designers and engineers had to work with contemporary fuel-economy requirements, which call for extreme streamlining of their cars. In addition, far greater strength must be built into roof supports, in order to meet crash standards. Still, these new dimensions of the driver’s view are a shock to a person whose regular daily driver is a 1990 Cadillac Fleetwood, which has a much more open, airier-feeling greenhouse!

Next to the driver’s position the 300 offers a center console with all the current trimmings. This one is the most spacious I have ever seen, with plenty of coin and cupholders, and a main storage cavity that dwarves that of the car’s conventional dash-panel “glove box.” (The Kaiser has a “drop-down” type drawer that hold a lot of stuff, but lets most of it slides down toward you when you open it!)

The Chrysler 300s radio is a typical modern center dash-panel job with more button than you can count while keeping your eyes on the road. I always have trouble operating the dozens of options and dozens of buttons and knobs on these radios. I did find the volume control, plainly marked, and tried it out, finding that there was a neat volume display with a progressive line of tick-marks moving to the right as volume increased. I wondered if this was for deaf drivers who were tuning the radio for non-hearing-impaired passengers! And then on the Kaiser’s radio…..it doesn’t work! Oh, well, it’s A.M. only, and that’s only windbag political talk shows now anyway!