Special Edition of Chrysler 300 to Honor Motown

Chrysler has announced that it will offer a special edition Motown version of the 300 sedan. To be introduced at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit and offered for sale in the spring, the car comes with the blessing of Berry Gordy Jr., Motown’s founder. Mr. Gordy also appears in a new television advertisement publicizing the Motown edition and promoting “Motown: The Musical,” a production based on Mr. Gordy’s life set to open on Broadway in April.

In the ad, Mr. Gordy is seen in the back seat of the new car. The car passes the famous Hitsville U.S.A. house, site of the company’s early offices and now the Motown Museum. To a soundtrack of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” the Marvin Gaye-Tammi Terrell Motown classic, the ad presents stills of Motown stars and clips of a drive from Detroit to Manhattan. It tracks a journey that begins with such Detroit landmarks as the Detroit Institute of Arts, but ends in New York, specifically in front of the Lunt-Fontanne Theater.

The Motown edition is visually cleaned up and accented. Its face is a good match, it turns out, for the face of the balding Mr. Gordy, a former boxer. Both are planar and rugged.

Unlike the Chryslers of Motown’s golden years, the Motown 300 offers neither eight-track stereo nor 8-cylinder engine. There is, however, an 8-speed ZF automatic transmission to make the most of the 3.6-liter Pentastar V-6, with 292 horsepower and 31 m.p.g. on the highway.

The custom look of the car is restrained but bold. It’s no blingmobile, but there is plenty of brightwork, including a seven-blade grille whose pattern is picked up by the 20-inch wheels and chrome accents on fascias and door handles.

The interior is based on a theme of white and black — like a piano keyboard. There is pearl white Nappa leather seating and a cockpit accented with piano black and black olive ash wood trim, a warm gray, to judge from the detail images Chrysler made available to the press.

The car arrives with 100 Motown songs preloaded on a memory card, part of the UConnect media info system. Sound comes from a 10-speaker Beats system with an 8.4-inch touch screen display. The Motown logo is visible outside, on the front quarter panels and insider embossed on the white leather seatbacks.

Chrysler has a history of nurturing sales of models with special editions. (Chrysler has sold 63,572 300s through November.) Previously it offered John Varvatos Luxury and John Varvatos limited editions of the 300C, each reflecting in different ways the style of Mr. Varvatos, a Detroit-raised fashion designer. (Mr. Varvatos is a music fan, too; he displays guitars and vintage records and audio equipment in his stores.) The John Varvatos Limited Edition offers a choice of the 5.7-liter Hemi engine.

The Detroit News reported that the Motown edition 300 will be joined by a Chrysler 200 8 Mile special edition, timed to the 10th anniversary of the film “Eight Mile” and extending the company’s relationship with Eminem.

Chrysler has something of a musical tradition in promoting and customizing its cars. Who can forget Snoop Dogg’s 2005 round of golf with Lee Iacocca? And decades before, when Mr. Iacocca was Chrysler’s chief executive, the company produced a 1981 Frank Sinatra edition Imperial.

The Motown 300 is available in bright white, gloss black, deep cherry red or jazz blue.

Courtesy of New York Times