For aficionados of the American car, the current Chrysler 300C harks back to one of the most famous American automotive icons  in the seminal crossover years of the 50s/60s.

Big fronts, big boots, big engines, big fins. These were the 'Yank Tank' style elements of the time. None more so than the 1955 Chrysler C-300, produced so that Chrysler could homologate its 5.4-litre 'Hemi' V8 as a production engine qualifying for the raceways where carmakers' reputations could be made or lost.

The name came from the fact that it was the first production car in America to have a 300hp engine, way ahead of anything else from the time. The 'Forward Look' styling was typical from designer Virgil Exner, and most elements of the C-300 were lifted from other current mainstream Chrysler models. But he still managed to provide a very distinctive car.

It also did well on the NASCAR racetrack, even if the roadgoing version had a modest 0-60mph performance  -- by today's standards -- of just 10 seconds. That the car only had a two-speed automatic transmission might be part explanation, but also American cars of the day weren't lightweight, either. Still, a 127.58mph 'flying mile' at Daytona Beach that year was a new record.

The 1956 model, now with the 'B' suffix which indicated Chrysler was establishing  a series, also set a Daytona record, this time of 139.37mph. Its Hemi had 40 more horses, was larger at 5.8 litres, and had acquired the options of 3-speed manual and automatic transmissions.

Up to now the car had been admired, but not bought in great numbers because it wasn't particularly road-friendly, and it was also expensive. But in 1957 the 300C got a much bigger grille and fins, a substantially larger engine of 6.4 litres, and some brash badging. It also had a convertible version, and the performance had bumped up to a 7.7 second 0-60mph sprint. Sales doubled to around 2,400.

In 1958 the standard engine was tuned to 380hp, and an optional -- but ultimately unreliable -- fuel injection version added another 10hp to the total. The 300 was still setting records, though, now on Bonneville Salt Flats doing a 156mph-plus flying mile. But America was in recession, and sales were miniscule.

But Chrysler was game to keep the game going, and in 1959 the 300E was the nameplate's showroom contender, though now with a new 6.8-litre 'wedge' V8 that didn't have the sexy connotation of the original 'Hemi'. The new engine had more torque, and therefore better acceleration, but buyers stayed out of the showrooms.

The 60s started with promise as the 300F gained massively finnier fins, now splayed outwards, and more importantly an engine with a 'cross ram' intake technology that punched up a 7.1 -second sprint performance. Some of this was due to the light weight of the car, using the new 'unibody' build. The stylists added a dummy spare wheel shape to the boot.

It was still the era of year-on-year model change in American automobiles, and the 300G of 1961 featured a cosmetic inversion of the trapezoidal grille, which gave an even more aggressive look for cars oncoming. Though sprint speeds were down, but still respectable at 8.4sec.

In 1962 Virgil Exner departed from Chrysler, and with him his much-copied trademark fins. The 300H of that year, now the top of a pile of non-letter 300s which were to make the nameplate an almost-massmarket seller of more than 27,000 units, regained its power with a 7.7sec 0-60. But there weren't too many buyers at its top end, just 570 copies.

Chrysler skipped the 'I' letter and went straight to the 300J in 1963, and for one year dropped the slow-selling convertible in the process. The 'letter series' became a luxury car, fast but lacking street cred. The 400 cars built were but a token in the market.

The following year they dropped the price substantially, and the power to 360hp, for the 300K. Sales rocketed. Big performance was proved to be only a halo effect.

In 1965, the 'straight' style then the norm in American cars was also reflected in the last of the era's Chrysler 300s, the 300L. After that it was dropped without even a corporate whimper, though the final sales year performance of some 2,900 units was quite a respectable swan song.

The Chrysler 300 series was important not just as a style for its American times, but also as the precursor to the much more popularly accessible 'muscle cars' of the following decade in America. For any of us old enough to remember them, they are a major part of the folk memory of the American Car.

by Brian Byrne.