TESTED 2007 Chrysler 300C CRD

WHAT IS IT? Full-size rear-drive four-door sedan.

HOW MUCH? Not for sale in the United States. Estimated base price, $28,500.

WHAT MAKES IT RUN? A Mercedes-Benz 3-liter turbodiesel V-6 (215 horsepower, 376 pound feet of torque); five-speed automatic transmission.

IS IT THIRSTY? Hardly, for a car this big. By European test standards, combined mileage is 36 percent better than its V-6 gasoline counterpart.

ALTERNATIVES Mercedes-Benz E320 Bluetec, $52,325.

THE day after a diesel-powered Audi racecar won the 24 Hours of Le Mans last month — for the second year running — was the perfect occasion for my drive in a European-specification diesel family sedan. Sure, the Chrysler 300C CRD I drove around northern New Jersey was not nearly as fast as the winning Audi R10, and I certainly didn’t cover as many miles, but in the long run that brooding sedan may be prove as influential as Audi’s all-conquering racecar.

The wonderfulness of Europe’s diesels — half of all new cars sold there are diesel-powered — is an old story by now. Vacationers returning from the Continent may whine that the locals are rude and American dollars nearly worthless, but they’ll be just as likely to sing the praises of their rental car.

Many, blissfully ignorant of the E.P.A.’s byzantine regulations, ask, Why can’t we get these? I doubt that French tourists go home from a week at Disney World with the same degree of longing for the Sebring they got from Hertz.

Hearing the 300C CRD start when I picked it up at the parking garage after work, I wouldn’t have immediately known it was a diesel by the sound alone, though the enormous lettering on its flanks made the point. The 300C CRD has less invested in noise containment than an E-Class Benz diesel, it would seem, but it is still quite tolerable.

There was none of the sooty discharge from the tailpipe one might see from a vintage Oldsmobile diesel, should one of those still be running somewhere. A subdued clatter became notable only at stoplights, and then just enough to make me glance at the mirror expecting to find a heavy-duty pickup on my bumper.

Driving the Chrysler, a demonstration vehicle making the rounds courtesy of Bosch, the supplier of its fuel injection system, required some recalibration of my expectations. A foot-to-the-floor merge onto the Interstate brought the speedometer to 120 before I knew it, but that was in kilometers an hour, just about the prevailing pace of traffic. The smooth-shifting five-speed automatic transmission clicked off full-throttle gear changes at 3,700 r.p.m., appropriate for a diesel but unexpectedly early by gas-engine standards, where shifts come at 5,000 or so.

The 300C CRD (for common-rail diesel) has a 215-horsepower Mercedes-Benz V-6 under the hood, essentially the engine from the E320, rather than the gasoline V-6 or V-8 engines Chrysler offers in the United States. DaimlerChrysler has already done a similar transplant with the Jeep Grand Cherokee CRD; in that case, the diesel costs about $3,000 more than the gasoline V-6 model.

The appeal of a diesel is economy, and the 300C CRD has plenty to offer: in the European mileage ratings, it returns 26 m.p.g in town and 43 on the highway, compared with 18/34 for its twin powered by a 3.5-liter gas V-6. (The American version is rated 19/27 on the E.P.A.’s test.)

That’s not bad, considering the diesel produces nearly as much torque as the 5.7-liter Hemi V-8. At the time I drove it, diesel fuel was selling for $2.99 a gallon in New Jersey, about a nickel less than midgrade gas and 30 cents cheaper than premium.

There may be some measure of romantic charm to living with a small and relatively low-powered car for a week or two while on vacation, but it’s quite another matter to use one in a home-field context. I have driven other Euro models that were touring the States, most memorably a Smart ForTwo, and they were all a treat, but the novelty might have worn thin in short order. Using the large and familiar Chrysler 300 in my own neighborhood offered a better basis for comparison.

This much is certain: The sedan I drove was not quite ready for American drivers, at least not without a little retuning. The 4,200-pound car was lazy away from stoplights, finally coming to life at about 2,000 r.p.m. and muscling its way to 60 m.p.h in 7.6 seconds, according to DaimlerChrysler. At a highway cruise, though, the response was perfectly acceptable, and while I could not pass all the cars in the left lane, I took comfort in rolling by a lot of filling stations. NORMAN MAYERSOHN