2001 Chrysler Concorde Road Test

Walkaround

One glance at the Concorde and your eye is immediately drawn to the grille. The massive, oversized grille is reminiscent of vintage Jaguars, a classic design that serves the Concorde with distinction. The lack of a visible front bumper lends elegance to the design. Above the grille sits the Chrysler division's retro-looking winged emblem. Large, kidney-shaped headlights are jewel-like in appearance. The sloping cowl sweeps into a steeply raked windshield. The sculptured sheet metal features a minimum of body cladding. Instead, there is great nuance to the metal, which rolls and undulates like a work of art.

Chrysler Concorde shares its basic structure with the Chrysler 300M and LHS and the sporty Dodge Intrepid. However, there are many differences: The Concorde offers unique styling. It's more than 5 inches longer than the Intrepid; it's less expensive than the LHS; and it's more elegant than the high-performance 300M. For many people, the Chrysler Concorde hits the mark, offering a wonderful balance of elegance, performance, handling, roominess and value.

Interior Features

Concorde's interior design is spacious and creative. The quality of the materials is high, much better than the previous-generation (pre-1998) Concorde. Colors match well, and gaps have been minimized. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the space where doors and dashboard come together. On pre-'98 models, this was a yawning chasm. Big doors open wide to aid getting in and out of the seats, though the steeply raked windshield and A-pillars make this a bit awkward. Relatively low side-bolsters on the seats make sliding into place easy.

Once inside, the Concorde reveals a roomy cabin. The cab-forward concept puts a tight squeeze under the hood but maximizes passenger space. There's lots of room inside. Concorde comes standard with an eight-way, power-adjustable driver's bucket seat with a manually adjustable lumbar support. (A front bench seat is available as a $100 option that increases seating to 6 passengers; it comes packaged with a column shifter instead of a console-mounted shifter.) The standard bucket seats provide good back and lateral support and the detailing of the fabric is world class. Leather seating surfaces come standard on the LXi. An optional Leather Interior Group ($1075) is available for the LX that includes leather bucket seats, a leather-wrapped steering wheel and shift knob, and eight-way power front seats.

Chrysler's winged medallion has been added to the horn pad this year. Steering wheel-mounted audio controls are now included with a nine-speaker Infinity audio system.

The rear seats are spacious and comfortable. As mentioned, a three-point seatbelt has been added to the center position for increased safety for that fifth passenger. The trunk offers 18.7 cubic feet of cargo space. The trunk hinges fold cleanly out of the way instead of intruding into the trunk compartment and crushing fragile items. A rear seat cargo pass-through compartment provides an easy way to carry skies and other long objects in the trunk. The lift-over height is high, however, which makes loading up a week's worth of groceries or heavy items a bit more work.

If there's a downside to the Concorde's sleek exterior styling it's the fact that visibility is slightly reduced. It takes some time to get the feel of the front end to know precisely where the front bumper is; you can't actually see the front corners of the car. And it takes a bit of getting used to the view out of the small rear window, too. Fortunately, the Concorde comes with big side mirrors.

Bright trim rings around the gauges improve the appearance of the instrument panel. The instrument panel is covered in material that is soft to the touch. Controls are easy to operate. We like having the compass, outside temperature gauge and map lights that come with the available overhead console, which also features a trip computer and a universal garage door opener.