Road Test: Chyrsler Delta 1.6 M-Jet 120

Price as tested: TBA

+ Different, nice styling, spacious, good quality, refined
– Middling chassis, unknown value for money, brand image needs work
= Affordable luxury? Almost, but needs a dynamic shake-up

So, after all the political wrangling, the financial back and forthing and the foaming at the mouth by aggrieved Lancia fans, the Chrysler Delta is here. A product of Fiat’s buy-out of bankrupt Chrysler and Jeep in 2010, combined with Fiat overlord Sergio Marchionne’s insistence that Chrysler will be kept to US shores and Lancia will take Europe. Except in right hand drive markets, where the old Lancia rust and unreliability rep was deemed to be too big a mountain for the marketing department to scale.

What we’ve got is a Lancia Delta (more or less unchanged from its continental launch in 2008) with Chrysler badges, and that is both a good and bad thing.

Good? Well, yes. Much though us car nuts would like to see the return of a brand a revered as Lancia to our shores, the simple fact is that far too many people will still regard a Lancia as a rust and parts nightmare and would walk, swiftly, away. Chrysler, in spite of such horrors as the old Sebring, has little or no backstory in the compact car market, and a lot of general goodwill thanks to nice cars like the Voyager and 300C. So in that sense, Marchionne’s decision was a no-brainer.

Bad? Well, yes. You see, and I don’t think this is just a car nut thing, but you expect a Chrylser to be big. To have a V8. To be a sofa on wheels, which chrome. And the Delta is none of those things.

It’s a Focus-sized hatchback, with a few twists. Twists like that long, long wheelbase which means you get a whopping amount of legroom in the back. It’s not quite limo-spec, but it’s not far off it.

Up front, you start to see the real, hard evidence of Chrysler’s assertion that the Delta is an affordable luxury car. There is a lot of leather, much of it with nice contrast stitching, quite a lot of chrome and some very high quality plastics. Some poor quality plastics too, sadly, and that does undermine the luxury case somewhat, as do switches and dials just lifted wholesale from the Fiat Bravo, with which the Delta shares its mechanical package.

And again, that sharing is some good, some bad. The good is largely in the engine, a 120bhp, 300Nm 1.6-litre diesel that’s well ahead of most of the competition in the power and torque stakes (so it IS a bit American then). It’s a well sorted unit, and sounds much quieter and more subdued here than it does in the too-noisy Alfa Romeo Giulietta. Chrysler claims 4.9-litres per 100km fuel consumption, which we’d believe as we managed a decent 5.5 average, but its Co2 emissions are just too high. 130g/km means it’s a band above its rivals from Ford, Citroen and Volkswagen.

What about the chassis? Hmmmm. There are some good things here. The steering and turn in are both sharper than we were expecting and the ride is mostly fine. It deals very well with big bumps and lumps, but suffers when the road is covered in small, short-wave stuff. Handling wise it is nicer to chuck through a corner than you’d think, but still well and truly short of the Focus and Golf in dynamic terms. It does have a better combination of ride and handling than the too-stiff Citroen DS4 though.

Ultimately, you can really feel that this is actually already a three year old car. It just doesn’t feel as dynamically well sorted nor as cleverly designed inside as it should be. Take the seats for instance. They look great (leather, again with contrast stitching) but when you actually sit on them, you feel too perched up and unsupported. They should, and could, be much comfier and if you’re selling your car as an affordable luxury carriage, they really ought to be.

The other issue is price. We don’t yet know how much the Delta is going to cost and that’s a fairly critical issue. OK, so Chrysler isn’t stupid and will no doubt have noticed that all of the Delta’s major rivals are in the €20-22k price range, so so will be the Delta. But its potential success or otherwise will depend on whether it’s at the top or bottom end of that range. If it’s a bargain, then it’s got a chance. If not, then probably not.

It’s not a bad car, the Delta, and in Chrysler terms, it’s a good introduction to a marketplace it’s never really dipped a toe in before. But you just can’t help feel that there is more, and better, to come from the Fiat-Chrysler tie-up. A more sophisticated chassis, more attention to detail in the cabin, a clearer sense of what it means to be a Chrysler; all these things would help.

In fairness, that does look as if it’s going to happen. Fiat has given long-serving stylist Lorenzo Ramiciotti the job of coming up with a styling language that works for both Lancia and Chrysler, on both sides of the Atlantic. If he can do that, and if the engineers can come up with a dynamic setup that can pay homage to the marketing bumph of affordable luxury, then this whole Italian-American deal could work out OK.


Facts & Figures

Chrysler Delta 1.6 M-Jet 120
Price as tested: TBA
Range price: TBA
Capacity: 1,598cc
Power: 120bhp
Torque: 300Nm
Top speed: 193kmh
0-100kmh: 10.7sec
Economy: 4.9l-100km (57.6mpg)
CO2 emissions: 130g/km
VRT Band: B. €156 road tax
Euro NCAP rating: 5-star adult, 3-star children, 2-star pedestrian