Chrysler ME Four-Twelve: The Forgotten 248 mph concept
Chrysler should've made this car when they had the chance!
If this car would've been produced back in 2004, this would've been the fastest car in the world, and it would have kept that title until the Bugatti Veyron would have came and took that record. Just imagine if the Chrysler brand would've held the top speed world record. That would be a crazy time.
Let me start off by explaining the name: The Four stands for the number of turbochargers, the Twelve standing for the number of cylinders. Put 2+2 together, and you find yourself with a quad-turbocharged V12. That V12 comes from Mercedes AMG. It was rear-wheel drive, mid-engined, and had a flappy paddle gearbox. That's just the level of crazy this car was.
Chrysler making this car is like Rolls Royce making a track-car; it's bizarre. For example, the Mercedes V12 with the 4 turbochargers made the ME Four-Twelve faster than a cat running away from a dog. It's capable of producing 850 horsepower and 850 torques. The Chrysler ME Two-Four is just as, if not less heavy than the hypercars of today, as it only tips the scales at 2,880 pounds. So then, it has the recipe for a super fast 0-60; lightness and plenty of power. And indeed it is super fast, as it'll do it 2.9 seconds. And yes, this car is said to go all the way up to 248 miles per hour. Bear in mind that this is all in 2004.
So, what happened?
At first, the production of the ME Four-Twelve seemed inevitable. The press release of the Chrysler ME Four-Twelve even said that the car isn't much of a concept, but more a road-going model that will go on sale in the summer of what would have been 2005. However, there was a problem. Daimler-Benz, otherwise known as Mercedes, owned Chrysler at the time. Also at the time, the Mercedes McLaren SLR had just finished being developed, which as you could imagine, was quite costly to develop. The ME Four-Twelve would've been much more expensive to develop, but in turn, it would've been faster. Mercedes didn't want a Chrysler to be faster than their new Mercedes McLaren SLR, nor did they want to spend money making such a car, and therefore, the car was axed. In other words, it's fair to say you can blame Mercedes as the reason we never got a road-going ME Four-Twelve.
Would you have liked to have seen this? Let me know!
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Comments (13)
the side profile looks similar to a Noble to me? especially the wheel arches, anyone else?
Instead they made crossfire from Mercedes parts bin. No wonder they had financial issues and low number sales. Mean time Mercedes took great advantage of jeep and now they are making the best suvs. What did Chrysler got out of their merger?
They could have made some great cars with Mercedes but rather just wasted away.
Why couldn’t they put that Mercedes v12-TT engine in viper? I don’t think any viper enthusiast would of complained.
Yeah, that merger was a disaster. There was also an in-company rivalry between Merc and Chrysler, which didn’t help. If Chrysler bought Daimler back in ‘98, they probably wouldn’t have gotten into the messes they’ve been in.
God I've always loved this car. Would've been insane having the car thay was the veyron before the veyron be a Chrysler too (even if it was mostly a Merc)
I remember how cool it was back then. It would have been competitive against the 2005 Ford GT. It also would have had sales pre recession. Although the partnership created some questionable cars, I’m looking at you Dodge Caliber. That said , we wouldn’t have the LX cars still in production and selling even more than in years.
Beautiful car. They should bring back the crossfire and make if an actual fca product. They could easily have the pentastar and hemi go in that