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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At the New York Auto Show in April Chrysler will finally reveal the third generation Viper sports car after a two year production hiatus. In the run up to the reveal, Chrysler has begun to tease the new model with the new logo making its debut yesterday. Each of the three generations has had its own unique take on the snake head design getting more sophisticated as the car evolved.

The Viper has always had an interesting relationship with Chrysler with each generation appearing at a time of rebirth for the company. The original 1989 concept arrived as Chrysler suffered through a recession with an aging product line. Francois Castaing, Bob Lutz and Carrol Shelby conceived a new interpretation of Shelby's original 1960s Cobra with a massive 8.0-liter V10 engine. Like the Cobra, the Viper was very basic, with four wheels, two seats, lots of power and not much else.

The production model arrived two and a half years later in 1992 at more or less the same time a new generation of Chrysler vehicles (the LH models) were coming to market. While it never was a big seller, it quickly became an icon and achieved huge successes on the track over the next decade.
http://www.examiner.com/automotive-in-detroit/dodge-viper-born-to-race-a-retrospectivepre

A decade after the original, a followup arrived at around the same time that the Chrysler 300 revived the classic American big sedan idea. Production of the Viper was wound down in 2010 as sales dropped during the recession and Chrysler put its focus on new mainstream models post-bankruptcy.
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/09/11/in-the-autoblog-garage-2008-dodge-viper-srt-10/

I can't wait to see what the team has done with the new Viper. It will apparently retain the V10 configuration and the classic muscle roadster proportions but little else is known at this time.

#viper #dodgeviper #srtviper #chrysler

In album Viper logos (3 photos)

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