Over the years I was fortunate enough to get to drive several different Dodge Vipers in various guises. The first came in 1995 when I was an engineer at Kelsey-Hayes and we had one in the garage for some testing. Kelsey-Hayes supplied some of the brake components including the booster and master cylinder to those original Vipers.
It was more than a decade before I got into another Viper at the Chrysler Proving Grounds when I sampled the club-racer ACR model on an autocross course.
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/06/27/chryslers-whats-new-2008-autocrossing-the-dodge-challenger-an/
Several months later I got to drive a Viper for several days on the street for a full review and my last major Viper encounter came during a 2010 visit to the Walter P Chrysler museum where they had put on a retrospective of the car's first 20 years.
http://www.examiner.com/automotive-in-detroit/dodge-viper-born-to-race-a-retrospectivepre
While the Viper was never particularly sophisticated, it was huge fun to drive and more than almost any other car embodied my philosophy of "There is no such thing as too much torque!"
#viper #dodgeviper #srtviper #chrysler
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Review: 2008 Dodge Viper SRT-10 [w/VIDEO]
2008 Dodge Viper SRT-10 Next January's Detroit Auto Show will mark the 20th anniversary of the Viper's
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I first saw the Viper RT/10 Roadster at a car show in Minneapolis in the spring of 1993. Of course being a teenager at the time it was so awesome to see in person. I have always liked the Viper but never had the opportunity to drive one.
My love for the Viper started to wane as I became more a fan of the Corvette, more particularly the ZR-1.
My attention switched back to the Viper again in college when that beautiful blue with white stripe GTS came out in 1996. I bought every scale model of that car I could find. I was living in Central Texas at the time and would see one on the roads every so often and actually got passed by one at a high rate of speed and oh the sound that car made.
I still have a soft spot in my automotive heart for the Viper and maybe, just maybe one day I will actually get to drive one.
+Kelly Garcia I love the ZR1 as well and it's kind of like have two kids with distinctly different personalities. While both the Viper and Vette are similar in size, weight and output, in so many ways they are diametrically opposed.
The magna-ride dampers and overall higher level of technology (at least compared to the Viper) make the ZR1 seem much more modern and sophisticated. The Vette is an everyday supercar.
The Viper is so much more raw, a completely different kind of experience. It's a hoot, but probably not something I would want to use for a daily commute.