Junkyard Gem: 2006 Chrysler 300C

During

my wrecking-yard travels

, I tend to focus on

old

,

rare

, and/or

strangely badge-engineered

vehicles when I decide what is worth documenting. Sometimes, though, a fairly mainstream vehicle from our current century catches my eye, and this

2006 Chrysler 300C

in a Charlotte, North Carolina, junkyard is such a car.

The current

Chrysler

Hemi engine family first appeared in 2003

Dodge

trucks, and so the revival of the legendary Hemi name was still pretty new when the

300C

went on sale.

This car had

340

horsepower when new, which almost certainly meant more power at the wheels than the 426 Hemi cars of the late 1960s and early 1970s (the

differences between gross and net horsepower

ratings tend to result in inflated power numbers for cars of a half-century back).

At considerably more than 2 tons, however, the 300C wasn’t likely to humiliate a ’70 Hemi ‘Cuda in a drag race.

This car appears to be in reasonably solid condition, so we can assume that something very expensive went wrong with the engine and/or transmission. That won’t stop some eager junkyard shopper from grabbing the Hemi, though.

The same junkyard had

a 2001 Audi S8

when I stopped by, with 360 horsepower, but nobody will want that engine for their

work truck

.

There’s a lot of stuff in this ad that could be interpreted much differently in 2018, compared to 2006, starting with the

Aung San Suu Kyi

reference.