The Dynasty is a wonderful highway cruiser. The ride is well-controlled and almost completely serene, except for a tiny bit of road noise that makes it through all of the sound insulation. The engine is completely inaudible at highway cruising speeds, mostly due to the overdrive top gear in the transaxle–the 3.0L V6 is turning a very relaxed 1950 RPM at 60 MPH. The transaxle generally shifted very smoothly, but there were one or two occasions where I felt a rather abrupt downshift into low gear as the car was coming to a halt. The front seat is especially comfortable for two people, with plenty of built in support and grippy fabric to hold you in place during cornering (though this being the conservative car that it is, you certainly don’t want to be flying around corners fast enough so that people notice, do you?). The rear seat is quite comfortable for two as well, though I found that the power seat mechanisms under the front seats cut into toe room a bit. The Dynasty makes a great four passenger car but things may be a bit cramped for six.

With the combination of 6-way power seat adjustment and tilt steering wheel, air suspension, it’s fairly easy to come up with a comfortable driving position in the Dynasty. However, I always felt like I was sitting a bit low in relation to the dashboard (or maybe the top of the dashboard seemed a bit too high–everything’s relative). Hiking the seat up to what felt like a good height resulted in the top of my head being polished by the headliner. I did finally grow used to the “lowrider” driving position, but never completely forgot about it.

Though the Dynasty strut looks quite conservative, it behaves with almost youthful vigour. The car I drove (a top of the line LE model) was equipped with the standard 141-horsepower, Mitsubishi-built 3.0 liter V6 engine and electronically controlled 4-speed automatic transmission. This powertrain gives the Dynasty surprisingly strong acceleration from a standing start and also makes passing on a two lane highway a breeze. A larger, Chrysler-built 3.3 liter V-6 with 147 horsepower is optional in the Dynasty, but the 3.0L V6 in my test car certainly had plenty of zip for every situation I encountered. A 2.5 liter, 4-cylinder engine offering 100 horsepower and a 3-speed automatic transaxle are standard on the basic Dynasty. However, my feeling is that the 4-cylinder powertrain might be a bit too conservative, even for someone like uncle Harvey.