Now don't get me wrong, it's not that the Five Hundred isn't good enough to convert Honda, Mazda, Nissan and Toyota owners if
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| The Five Hundred looks pretty fine, even better on the road, but not nearly as in-your-face as the Chrysler 300. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press) |
they ever stepped out of their cars long enough to drive one, it's just that the overwhelming majority won't. To this end Chrysler scores a solid victory. Like it or not, the 300 is daring, bold, and extroverted. That striking in-your-face styling created immediate curiosity when it debuted, and resultantly has spurred on a great deal of showroom traffic. How much curiosity will the Five Hundred garner? My guess is if it wasn't for all the excitement stirred up over the 300 vs. 500 feud, not a heck of a lot. That's not saying that it's unattractive. Actually, the Five Hundred looks pretty fine, even better on the road. I particularly like its tasteful grille treatment and large Euro headlight clusters, while its rear end styling is pleasant with Mercedes-like triangular taillights. But there was more than one joke among journalists present at the Milwaukee-Chicago launch that Ford's head of design J Mays can only draw one sedan profile, the arc. And like most humor, there's usually some reality behind the jab. After all, the big Ford sedan looks a heck of a lot like a larger-than-life VW Passat in profile, not a bad car to be influenced by of course, but hardly cutting-edge design-language either. It's not a copy of the VW, mind you, because the man who
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| The Five Hundred might not be particularly aspirational from a design perspective, but neither are a lot of rival cars in this category. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press) |
penned it, or at least the man who oversaw the penmanship being that George Bucher is credited as chief designer, is the same guy who drew up the German sedan. That makes the similarities OK in my books. So, the Five Hundred might not be particularly aspirational from a design perspective, but neither are a lot of rival cars in this category, and they do fairly well. Some would put buyers of the Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, and the rest of the midsize group in the Five Hundred's targets as well, and due to the Ford's strong value proposition some will no doubt take the bait, but for the purposes of this review size and price will be the determining factor in deciding which cars compete.
