Chrysler's Bling King

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Ralph Gilles is showing off his Chrysler 300C, and as he points out details like chrome accents on the door trim, he insists that he has just one complaint: "It doesn't come with dubs." In hip-hop car lingo, dubs are oversize, 20-in. wheels. And Gilles is a big-wheel guy. An amateur racer, he hits the track on weekends with his 10-cylinder Dodge Viper — a nerve-racking hobby for his wife, the mother of his two young kids. As soon as he got his 300C for street use, he supersized it with black dubs. "It looks so good, I still get chills," says Gilles, 34. Of course, you wouldn't expect him to say otherwise, given that he is the vehicle's chief designer. But plenty of other folks think this Chrysler rocks, with or without those dubs.

The sedan, which went on sale in the spring, is the hottest iron out of Chrysler in a generation. Beefy, brash, styled like a gangstermobile, it is resonating with urban hipsters, popping up in music videos and car-makeover magazines, tricked out with big wheels, lowered suspensions and interiors with mini-bars and reclining seats. Shaq owns one; so does Snoop Dogg. The top-end 300C features Chrysler's popular 340-h.p. Hemi engine — a revival of the legendary V-8s that Chrysler built in the 1950s and '60s — the most car muscle you can buy in the $35,000 price range.

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Indeed, the 300 model line (which starts at $23,920) is the first since the 1998 DaimlerChrysler merger to validate Chrysler's strategy of trying to take its brand upmarket with a series of premium, high-volume cars and a new emphasis on design. And the car is fueling a dramatic turnaround at the automaker. On the basis of strong sales of the 300, Chrysler reported last month that it swung to a $628 million operating profit in its second quarter, vs. a $1.2 billion loss a year earlier. Chrysler brand sales were up 17% in July over a year ago, and the company has orders for nearly 90,000 of the 300--making the launch Chrysler's strongest since that of the Jeep Grand Cherokee in the early 1990s. Says Chrysler Group CEO Dieter Zetsche: "We want to attack on the car side."

That's a reversal for a company that has spent years focused on light trucks — and, even there, idled while Ford and General Motors dominated the trend-setting hip-hop market with such SUVs as the Lincoln Navigator and the Cadillac Escalade. Until now the DaimlerChrysler merger has been known mostly for plant closures, job cuts and jet-lagged executives. Moreover, Chrysler's gambit to charge premium prices with such new products as its luxe Pacifica wagon has met with resistance from consumers. The vehicle sold poorly out of the gate, and sales improved only after Chrysler cut prices. The Chrysler Crossfire, a two-seat sports car based on a Mercedes-Benz platform, sold weakly before a price cut too.

The 300, however, suggests that the merger is finally paying off with a product that may generate profit growth. The 300 and other cars based on its German-inspired rear-wheel-drive platform — like the Dodge Magnum that hit dealerships in June — appear to be selling on their merits, rather than being pushed by profit-killing finance incentives. "It looks more like a Rolls-Royce or a Bentley," says John Dickens, 64, who traded in his Lexus SUV, worth $65,000 new, for a 300C at a dealership in Athens, Texas.

On the hot seat after a lousy 2003, CEO Zetsche wasn't going to leave any detail of the 300 to chance. Over lunch at Chrysler headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich., he told TIME that he held talks with the design group to determine, down to the millimeter, the dimensions of the vehicle's imposing front grille. The chrome ringlets around the air conditioning and audio knobs: "That was from Dieter," says Gilles. Zetsche even suspended production of the air vents because they didn't close the way he wanted. "We had to have the courage to go for something different," Zetsche said.