The allure of trying to beat the exotic European manufacturers at their own game with something designed, engineered, and built in America has led several American manufacturers to build great supercars over the years. A lot of the time, the results were not what they hoped for, with some being underrated and others completely missing the mark. Just occasionally, though, we get an American-made supercar that's so good that everyone has to sit up and take notice.That's exactly whatChrysler managed in the 2000s with a bona fide supercar that looked out of this world and boasted performance figures unlike almost anything else we'd seen at the time. It also came very close to becoming a fully-fledged production car anyone with enough money could buy. The Chrysler ME Four-Twelve Almost Became The Greatest American Supercar Stellantis MediaChrysler has made plenty of fantastic concept cars over the years. There was the Hemi V8-powered Firepower that could have rivalled cars like the Aston Martin V8 Vantage, the awesome Chrysler Turbine Car from the '60s and the fully-electric Airflow concept that resurrected the name of the classic streamliner for the 2020s.The Chrysler ME Four-Twelve has to easily be its best, though. Debuted at the North American International Auto Show in 2004, this was a full-blooded supercar in every sense of the term. It came at the very end of the era of traditional supercar engineering, and you can really tell. It's got a striking design, with spaceship-like angular lines and huge air intakes on the side. Those massive side intakes feed one of the most insane engines ever dropped into a Chrysler concept car. It was a heavily boosted, quad-turbo V12 that produced a claimed 850 hp and 850 lb-ft of torque. Chrysler reckoned this was enough to take the ME Four-Twelve from 0-60 in just 2.9 seconds and onto a top speed of 248 mph. Those figures would still be impressive today and firmly put the Me Four-Twelve into hypercar territory. The ME Four-Twelve Had Some Of The Best Engineering Of Its Day Stellantis Media The Chrysler ME Four-Twelve was a very advanced car when it came to how it was built. The body was entirely made up of carbon fiber. This was mated to a carbon fiber and aluminum honeycomb chassis. This made the ME Four-Twelve incredibly light and strong. Its body was so strong, in fact, that it was able to meet all the US crash safety regulations as a prototype car! Weight savings continued inside the cabin as well, thanks to the use of carbon fiber seats.The advanced engineering and technology didn't stop with the body, either. It had some of the most advanced aerodynamics you could get in (what was supposed to be) a road-going supercar in the early-mid 2000s. This included active aero, thanks to a rear wing that would move back 100 mm (around 3.9 inches) at high speed. Its transmission was also pretty cutting-edge for its day, using a 7-speed dual-clutch system designed by Ricardo – the same company that designed the transmission for the Bugatti Veyron. It's safe to say the transmission easily handles the car's 850 hp. An Executive's Passion Project Stellantis Media The ME Four-Twelve project was spearheaded by Wolfgang Bernhard, Chrysler's COO at the time. He was incredibly passionate about it, claiming at the time that it "represents the ultimate engineering and design statement from Chrysler." He was also keen to stress that it was "not really a concept car" and that it was actually "a prototype that will be road-ready this summer." He really, really wanted to build it, and he seemed to be backed up both by public demand and the Chrysler brand itself. There was even talk at the time that Chrysler could build as many as 300 ME Four-Twelves per year if the interest was there. An American Supercar, With A Bit Of German Engineering Stellantis Media Considering this car has an American badge and was built by one of the most quintessentially American brands of all time, you'd expect that the Chrysler ME Four-Twelve was going to be all-American in the engineering department. But, you'd be wrong there. The ME Four-Twelve owes some of its existence to a legendary German manufacturer: Mercedes-Benz.See, the Chrysler ME Four-Twelve was born during the DaimlerChrysler era. That means that Mercedes-Benz and Chrysler were part of the same company at the same time. This let Chrysler use pretty much any Mercedes-Benz parts and engineering they wanted in their cars. If you've ever wondered why the Chrysler Crossfire had so much in common with the Mercedes-Benz SLK of that era, that should be a clue.Stellantis Media Thanks to being corporate buddies with Mercedes-Benz, they were able to use its legendary 6-liter V12 engine. Of course, Chrysler didn't leave it untouched. It was heavily modified, having four turbochargers added to it in the process. This was how Chrysler was able to get the crazy power figures it claimed the ME Four-Twelve had. Why Was The ME Four-Twelve Never Produced? The Chrysler ME Four-Twelve wasn't just a fancy concept car. It was a fully working prototype, and it could have been developed into a limited production model. There was even a lot of demand for that to happen. The ME Four-Twelve truly captured the public's imagination, and it looked like Chrysler really wanted to pull the trigger on a production run. An estimated price of between $250,000-$750,000 was even quoted. But, that didn't happen. Here's Why.Unfortunately, the answer has something to do with the Daimler part of the DaimlerChrysler company. Mercedes-Benz was ostensibly not happy with the Chrysler ME Four-Twelve's existence. The company felt that the ME Four-Twelve could have been internal competition to the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. The SLR McLaren was a car that Mercedes-Benz had spent years and millions developing, and the company was very proud of it. Now, it was being challenged from within the company itself by something that promised to be much faster and was on track to gain just as much public interest as the SLR. Expectedly, they were against the Chrysler ME Four-Twelve being made into a proper production car.The development team that made the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren allegedly even protested about the Chrysler ME Four-Twelve's development. Chrysler had to back off and give in to Mercedes-Benz's demands to help keep the DaimlerChrysler merger intact. That was something that was doomed anyway. Not long after, Daimler sold off Chrysler due to constant internal differences between the two brands. Is Mercedes-Benz Entirely To Blame? Stellantis Media It seems easy to entirely blame Mercedes-Benz for the Chrysler ME Four-Twelve's demise. Mercedes was the part of DaimlerChrysler that protested the loudest about its existence, after all. But, there could have been other factors that worked against the Chrysler ME Four-Twelve. Some have speculated that Chrysler might not have been able to recoup the development costs if it had gone all the way to making a production version of the car. That's an understandable position. The ME Four-Twelve would have been really expensive, even for a supercar. Chrysler would likely have spent millions upon millions of dollars refining the car to make it production-ready. Its exotic construction compared to other Chrysler models could have made it very expensive to manufacture, too. If not enough people had bought the ME Four-Twelve, it could have sent the Chrysler corporation into a serious amount of debt. Could The Chrysler ME-412 Have Been Successful? With Mercedes-Benz putting a stop to the Chrysler ME Four-Twelve ever becoming a production supercar, there are a couple of things we'll never be able to know. We'll never know how good it could have been as a production car, and we'll never truly know whether it would have been a success for the brand. We can make some guesses, though, and it's likely that it wouldn't have been as successful as Chrysler might have hoped.Supercar owners and customers are notorious badge snobs. The Acura NSX (Honda NSX for those outside of North America) always had issues with being marketed as a proper supercar thanks to its relatively lowly badge. That's even though it's clearly one of the most influential supercars ever made and was a benchmark for the McLaren F1, one of the greatest supercars of all time.Because of this prejudice, many potential customers would have turned their noses up at the Chrysler ME Four-Twelve. Even if it had met its performance claims and become the fastest supercar in the world, that might not have been enough to tempt buyers away from Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and the SLR McLaren, for that matter.
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