As famous American roads go, they don't come much bigger than the Pacific Coast Highway. Only Route 66 is better known and that offers none of the visual splendour available on this stunning seaside route up America's West coast. There's a feel good feeling about this road that Chrysler hope will rub off on the latest special edition version of their evergreen all-American PT Cruiser mini-MPV.

Chrysler's PT Cruiser is the Marmite of the automotive world. Some people love its 1950s Americana styling while others can't abide it but what you will find is that everybody has an opinion. What cannot be disputed is that Chrysler have managed to churn out a car that's highly distinctive, you could almost say unique. There's certainly nothing that looks quite like it on UK roads that didn't roll off the production line around half a century ago. This look is the PT Cruiser's key strength: just inspect the sales figures of this car compared to the dearly departed Chrysler Neon for evidence of that.

The Cruiser is based on the old Neon platform and beneath the bodywork they are very similar vehicles but Chrysler couldn't give the conventionally-styled Neon away, while PT Cruisers shot from the showrooms like the hotrods they resemble. In light of this, it makes sense for Chrysler to make the most of the PT Cruiser's aesthetics and that's exactly what they're doing with the Pacific Coast Highway special edition - while trying to inject a little performance pedigree at the same time.

"Some people love its 1950s Americana styling others can't abide it but what you will find is that everybody has an opinion"

This is the latest PT Cruiser with its inverted-comma headlamps and restyled grille. The price being asked for the Pacific Coast Highway special edition is a far from unreasonable £15,550. For that, you get a car which is based on the mid-Range but reasonably opulent Touring trim level. This means that all Pacific Coast Highway models feature body-coloured side mouldings and bumpers, chrome door handles, electric heated mirrors, a CD stereo, electric windows, air-conditioning, fold and tumble rear seats, a leather steering wheel and a compass in the overhead console. To these standard features, the Pacific Coast Highway adds cruise control, a chrome gear knob plus a six-disc CD/radio. The exterior styling has been enhanced with 17" alloy wheels, lowered suspension, chrome bodyside mouldings and tailpipe and a body colour roof spoiler.

The car is offered with the petrol 2.4-litre DOHC 16-valve engine or the 2.2 CRD diesel. The sizable 141bhp output of the petrol option should prompt a few raised eyebrows but the raw performance figures are less impressive. Acceleration from standstill to 60mph requires 10.6 seconds and top speed is 121mph. The CRD unit delivers a 10.8s 0-60mph time and can return 47mpg on the combined cycle compared to a poor 30mpg with the petrol option. The stiffened suspension stops short of making the Cruiser an uncomfortable cruiser but it cuts back on the lurching bodyroll you get in mainstream models, so that cornering quickly becomes something you may conceivably want to do.

For a car with such a way-out exterior, the PT Cruiser is fairly mundane on the inside. Indeed, while the outside is certainly the car's best feature, the interior could well be its worst. There's a distinctly American market feel to the decor with low-grade plastics and generously padded seats that would be fine in your living-room but aren't really suitable for driving a car from. Internally, the PT Cruiser is the antithesis of the slick, solid, uncomplicated design favoured by the German manufacturers.

From a practical perspective however - just where you'd expect the car to be at its least impressive - the PT Cruiser is hard to fault. Though there are only two rows of seats, the cabin is extremely well thought out, with no fewer than 26 different interior combinations. For a start, the second row can be removed completely and has rollers to make the task easier. They split-fold 65/35 and fold flat on the seat cushions when they do so. Safety provision is also good with ABS, twin front airbags, 3-point belts all round, side impact protection and traction control.

It would take a lot more than the Pacific Coast Highway special edition package has to offer to turn the Chrysler PT Cruiser into a genuinely sporty car but it does yield more enjoyable handling and respectable performance while adding a touch more aggression to the car's unique appearance. The 2.4-litre engine may be a little thirsty for some compact MPV buyers but most people who purchase PT Cruisers are PT Cruiser buyers. They want that that car with that styling and nothing else will do because nothing else looks remotely similar. As luck would have it, the PT Cruiser is also well-equipped, practical and competitively priced, so fans of its image stumble into a reasonably workable product. The PT Cruiser is a car for people intent on standing out from the crowd and the Pacific Coast Highway special edition serves as a giant novelty hat to make absolutely sure they get their share of the attention.