Chrysler Sebring Overview

Ever since it was rolled out for the 1996 model year, the Sebring convertible's elegantly handsome lines, twinkle-toed road manners and easy, push-button retractible top have made it one of the most popular convertibles in America.

Never a company to take success for granted, Chrysler not only tweaked the base-level JX and midline JXi for '98--it also introduced a new luxury model: the Sebring Convertible Limited.

The Limited offers many luxury-line features as standard equipment, including chrome-plated cast-aluminum wheels, "Rose Zebrano" woodgrain interior accents, a beige-and-agate inside color scheme with perforated leather-trim seats, a padded console armrest, electro-luminescent lighting on the instrument cluster and special "Limited" exterior badges.

For the record, the Chrysler Sebring JX convertible is not a soft-cover version of the Sebring LX coupe. In fact, they're not even the same car--they share only a nameplate and an engine box. The Sebring LX coupe is descended from the Mitsubishi Galant sedan platform, while the Sebring JX convertible was spawned from Chrysler's Cirrus/Stratus platform. The Sebring JX convertible shares an engine and instrument panel with the Cirrus/Stratus.

The Sebring JX ragtop replaced the stalwart LeBaron convertible that Chrysler retired in 1996. From the early '80s through the mid-'90s, the LeBaron convertible sold briskly, even though it lacked pep and suffered from uninspired styling. Like the LeBaron, the Sebring ragtop is a true, by-design convertible, although sleeker and more muscular.

Besides the introduction of the Limited, and some new equipment options and cosmetic touches on the JX and JXi, the '98 Sebring convertible is mostly, and wisely, unchanged from the '97 model.