The 2023 Chrysler 300C Hemi V8 Sold Out in Just 12 Hours
It’s not only the most powerful 300C Chrysler’s ever made, it could be the last.
Almost immediately after Stellantis announced the Chrysler 300C would return for just one year with Hemi V8, fans and potential customers rushed to their email and phones in hopes of snagging an allocation. Except, according to Motor Trend, after just twelve hours, there weren't anymore. In literally just half of one day, Chrysler sold out of its 2,200 limited-run 300C Hemi V8s (2,000 for the U.S. and 200 for Canada), which means there's now a waiting list for anyone that still wants one.
It isn't much of a surprise that Chrysler would sell out of the high-powered 300C so quickly. Its classic boxy design still looks pretty good today and it packs a massive 6.4-liter Hemi V8 that makes 485 horsepower and 475 pound-feet. That might not sound like a lot in today's world of thousand-horsepower SUVs, but it's still capable of 0-60 mph in just 4.3 seconds. It's no Hellcat but it certainly ain't slow.
Some fans will still wonder why Chrysler opted to not make a 300C Hellcat. After all, the 300C shares its chassis and most its exterior with the Charger and that comes with a Hellcat engine. So why not the Chrysler 300C? Why is it stuck with a regular, albeit still very good, Hemi engine instead? The answer is simpler that you might imagine, actually. We reached out to Chrysler for a comment on Friday and, as it turns out, there just aren't any Hellcat engines available for it.
There are currently several different cars that use the massive 6.2-liter supercharged Hellcat V8; the Dodge Charger and Challenger Hellcats and even the Durango Hellcat. That means there aren't any engines left over for the aging, limited-run Chrysler. So instead, Chrysler stuffed an off-the-shelf Hemi V8 engine in and created a car that fans still seem to love, hence the quick sellout.
The Chrysler 300C is dead after the 2023 model year, with no official plans to replace it with a new model anytime soon. Chrysler would like to bring the 300 name back for a future car but it will almost certainly be all-electric at that point, as the brand wants to fully shift toward electrification by 2028. That makes this Hemi V8-powered version the last 300 you'll be able to buy for at least a few more years. If you want one, though, you're going to have to hope someone drops their allocation, as they're already gone.
Have a tip? Send it over to nico.demattia@thedrive.com
