I KNOW A LITTLE GERMAN
Before this, it was commonly held that any right-hand-drive North American sports car had been built in a lefthand-drive configuration and then converted to right-hand drive. The car that features in our story appeared 11 years before the 2015 right-handdrive Mustang. The Chrysler Crossfire was actually manufactured straight from the factory in right-hand-drive configuration, and it was sold in New Zealand as a new vehicle.
The Crossfire available here was modelled after a concept car revealed at the 2001 Detroit Motor Show designed by Eric Stoddard, a 25-year-old Chrysler employee. Public reaction was such that, after the show, DaimlerChrysler announced it would build it. Just three years later, the car rolled out the factory doors. Surprisingly, the only visual changes were the dropping of the split windscreen and the controversial twin vertical headlights. The production car was more refined, not as heavy looking, and it had a more subdued interior.
This new Chrysler flagship was designed using as much as possible from the firm’s proven Mercedes SLK 320. Although Daimler has been criticised for giving the Crossfire the hand-me-down R170 platform while
