Snake Bit: A Eulogy for the Dodge Viper #BlogPost

“Life, like a child, laughs, shaking its rattle of death as it runs.”

That is the best way to describe the Dodge Viper’s time on this planet; it was a carefree beast, one that should not be mistaken as brutish, clumsy, or lazy. Doing this would be a major error that would be a slippery slope to the car’s revenge by lashing out at the driver, losing control and injuring the controller.

Despite this, people loved it; in twenty-five years, it established a following that took the Corvette over 60 years to form, evolving with the bow-tie cousin into a fully-fledged supercar. They both engaged in fierce competition, a battle between the skilled General and the wily uncle of the Big Three, challenging and overpowering competition from Europe and Asia to become the zeniths of American engineering.

When it met the Corvette, it was but the learner; now, it is the master, trumping its mentor at several tracks in its ACR guise with the Extreme Aero package. How, then, did it rise to such a peak, and why was it struck down when it was becoming astronomically amazing?

Carroll Shelby set a precedent when he started shoehorning Ford V8’s into British roadsters in 1962, gaining large amounts of acclaim for his Cobras’ abilities to nip at the owner (and a certain cavallino), especially with how such cars could be unruly to handle in the wrong hands. In the right hands, however, these lightweight cars showed incredible potential, with such performance being inspired by Shelby’s experiences in motorsport, including driving an Aston Martin DBR1 alongside Roy Salvadori to win the 1959 running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. During the race, he noticed one English GT car, an AC Ace, perform admirably, and this would serve to be the launchpad from where the Cobra’s inception would occur.

Such was the resulting car’s fame (and infamy) that other manufacturers began to notice that the humble chicken farmer was feeding his coop something different, creating a new breed of sports cars. No longer was the focus on being just light; power, in sufficient quantities, needed to be mixed thoroughly into a spartan, weightless chassis.

Twenty-six years later, Bob Lutz, the president of Chrysler at the time, reminisced over the vehicle and its qualities, planning on, in his words, “doing a project like a reborn Cobra.” It was February of 1988 when he found help in the company’s chief of design, Tom Gale. Calling him in while he was walking through a hall, Lutz’s pitch was short (at five minutes in length), but the idea took root immediately. It was a much-needed adrenaline shot from Chrysler, who, throughout the 1980’s, built cars that were more fitting for posters in a driving school than posters in a kid’s bedroom.

The idea was radical, especially by their mundane standards: a modern engine management system, a forward-thinking transmission, a suspension created in part by computers, and tires reserved for the highest marques. It would be a car sculpted by the bleeding edge, but wouldn’t include any of its blood inside of it. It would be a mechanical, back-to-basics approach to a performance car, a killer in the wrong hands and a beast in the right ones. It needed to be a direct connection of the car and the driver without any frills, with those having uncensored communication with the road.

Unlike the Cobra, the next big snake wouldn’t utilize a V8. In the late 1980’s, Lutz oversaw the truck division at Chrysler, where he wanted to create a gasoline engine with loads of torque in order to make Dodge’s pickups more appealing. Francois Castaing, the former technical director of Renault’s Formula One team and the head of Chrysler’s Jeep and Truck Engineering division, wanted to utilize a large V10 in their trucks, which, as he recalls, was “the kind of engine that back in the 1960s, Bizzarrini and DeTomaso would have bought to create the great sports car of back then.”

To Bob, an owner of a Shelby Cobra, “Chrysler had all the bits and pieces in the parts bin [for a Cobra successor]. Whether it’s the truck bin or the car bin, who cares?” To use the Cobra as a template for his sports car meant that Carroll Shelby would inevitably become involved, with him being a performance consultant for Lutz’s company since 1982.

When the boss approached him with the idea, Shelby was also building a sports car and was seeking approval for it. Lutz proposed a car like his 427 Cobra, and Shelby tells that they “sat down about 30 minutes and conceptualized the car.” He noticed that what Bob was doing was what he was “trying to get done around the company for nine years,” and in that time, the next snake was birthed years before Shelby’s idea would be approved.

A few sketches, a full-size size view, and a computer rendering revealed the serpent’s form: a wide, two-seat roadster with a long nose and a short deck. The front fenders’ trailing edges were opened like air extractors, and on its low and swept windshield were mirrors that were integrated at their edges, with a targa-type roll bar supporting the car’s head restraints and full-wheel openings holding massive tires with deep offsets. Three weeks later, and Tom exuberantly asked his employer if he could see something: a fully-sized clay model of their efforts, which he approved of.

Construction of a prototype for the 1989 auto-show circuit began on the twenty-eighth of May in 1988, with its steel body being similar to that which was penned and molded. Now, however, a series of snakes erupted from below the front fender and meshed together within the rocker panels as side pipes that would spit the Viper’s venom. Lutz was stunned by the new design, seeing it as a departure from the original Cobra’s design themes. Such a departure, however, was necessary in order to keep the car from being a boring, regurgitated rendition of the original Cobra, making it a species different from Shelby’s breed.

Development of such a car prioritized the engine, with it being unique from the rest of their engines at the time. Gale states that Chrysler “packaged the car around the V10,” with a justification for the Viper’s existance being to take an engine and make something to showcase their work. VM02, a prototype created to develop the engine, was a red car that held a V8 of 360 cubic inches displacement (5.9 liters) that had two more cylinders to make a running engine. Lamborghini, then owned by Chrysler, would assist in developing the powerhouse.

In the meantime, on an airplane trip, Lutz pondered over a name. He wanted to stick with the snake theme, but needed to be careful. “Sidewinder” was considered, but not only did it have military connotations, it would also suggest that the car would usually go sideways. Where “asp” didn’t sound great, “python” sounded unfitting due to them being large and corpulent. He finally settled on “viper,” as it was easy to say and only had resistance from the marketing guys, who “wanted to call it Dodge Challenger.”

The attention garnered by the Viper’s release was immense, being featured in numerous magazines and daily newspapers, with hundreds of letters being sent that plead for the Viper to be put into production. Some people even sent checks for an early deposit, but those were returned, and even one of Bob’s friends at Ford who was high up in the corporate ladder started asking about it. This wonderful debut was captured in a picture of Shelby, Lutz, and Castaing, and as people began to want it, the latter of the three asked, “what are we going to do to make one?”

A week after this, the corporation’s chairman, Lee Iacocca, stated that he would determine the Viper’s fate in the second quarter of 1990, and on the eighteenth of May in that year, it was announced that it would be built in limited quantities.

Unmarked trucks began to deliver the 196 snakes in 1992 to a select few of Chrysler’s 2,800 retailers, being determined by the United States’s top forty markets for premium-priced sports cars (by, ironically, checking the number of Corvette registrations, making it a direct competitor to the General’s sports car) by looking at dealerships that had above-average sales and customer-satisfaction ratings. The MSRP was $50,000, but a $700 destination charge, a $2,600 gas-guzzler tax, and a $2,330 luxury tax rose the cost to $55,630, which was overshadowed greatly by dealerships that rose the price by $100,000 and buyers that bid as high as $200,000.

To ease this tension for a Viper, it was announced that 3,000 Vipers would be produced for the 1993 model year, and by July of 1992, approximately 70 percent were sold. The car wouldn’t be for the extremely rich, but for those who loved classic muscle cars, those that loved their sports cars light, pure, and with a titanic engine. Chrysler wanted to build fewer Vipers than it could sell, and some speculators were annoyed with the relatively open-ended production, making it a poor short-term investment, but Lutz states that, “long-term, a Viper is going to be an amazing investment.”

Enthusiasts wanted a muscular sports car on the bleeding edge, and Chrysler delivered.

There was, however, no end at a normal Viper. Yes, eight (or 8.4) liters of V10 give quite the wallop into a seat as it lunges and sidewinds into turns, with the latter being quite a worry to newer or experienced drivers. When driven by the right man, the driver is able to extract every bit of venom out of the car, letting it burst forward unrestrained, like a snake out of that place downstairs. Its massive, grippy tires kick pebbles up into the wheel wells as it seeks heat, the cold-blooded creature that it is, while hissing and roaring at the top of its lungs. Unfettered, it could snap back and kill an inexperienced owner.

This, and a burning desire to vanquish its main competitor, the Corvette, lead Dodge to slapping canards, diffusers, and giant rear wings on multiple Vipers; these would be known as the ACR. Such cars take the best of the Viper’s multitudinous racing programs and make them fit onto the road car, keeping them street-legal. There was even an ACR X in the advent of the Viper’s first hibernation, with this car being best known for snapping down the Nordschleife in 7:03.058.

The Viper’s greatest achievement, however, resides in this. After rising from its slumber in 2013, the Viper ACR returned with a vengeance for its 93 prototypes that were destroyed by Fiat-Chrysler. Returning with 645 HP and 600 lb-ft of torque, it is down on power to its Z06 competitor. Top speed is down on even its brethren, being 177 MPH, but save for a finned differential for improved cooling, it’s almost the exact same car as them, even using the same Tremec TR6060 six-speed stick-shifter.

The ACR Extreme package is to blame for this, with an enormous adjustable wing on the trunk lid, a gigantic front splitter, multiple canards, vents above the front tires, and a fierce rear diffuser. They all look to be styled by knives, and they are all key in planting the car into the ground with 2,000 pounds of all-American downforce. As a result, its drag coefficient is 0.54, which, compared to 0.37 on a standard Viper and 0.43 on a Viper TA, is much greater and, as a result, means that there is more wind pushing against it.

It also receives larger carbon-ceramic front brakes that are 1.4 inches larger than before, now measuring at 15.4 inches, fitting on 19-inch wheels (which are one inch larger than the standard wheels) with six-piston calipers. The rears utilize 14.2-inch carbon-ceramic rotors and four-piston calipers, and, alongside the stiffened coil-over suspension, the car is made to be sharper than before with Kumho Ecsta V720 near-slick tires.

When Dodge approached Kumho approximately three years ago (according to the twenty-eighth of June in 2016) with a request for a tire that was barely street-legal, it ended in a tire with very few external grooves. The front tires have the 295 width of before, but now have a section height of twenty-five, five less than the standard 30 (making them size 295/25R-19), and the rear tires remain with the 355 width (making them size 355/30R-19).

It now holds the most track records in the world for a single production car, at thirteen, beating the likes of the Porsche 918 Spyder and the McLaren P1 at tracks like Laguna Seca, Virginia International Raceway, and Road Atlanta.

Now we’re here, at the end of the original Viper, mourning the end of five generations of kick-bottom insanity. Lighter engines with tinier capacities and forced induction spelled the Viper’s doom; this fault was inevitable with choosing a “no replacement to displacement” approach for the Cobra’s spiritual successor. Here it lies dead in its prime, the worst kind of death, when it could wring out so much more.

In twenty-five years, it rose from newcomer to master, a child prodigy in the automotive universe, blasting past milestones and setting new ones. It met the Corvette’s bets and raised them, winning the jackpot on several occasions. It took today’s hybrid hypercars and minced them at a tenth of the price. It rejuvenated Chrysler from what it was, enhancing the “crazy uncle” guise and putting it on Red Bull.

The primary reason it was cancelled was not because of its low production numbers (2,687 were produced after 2012), but rather a discrepancy with safety. Regulation 226 of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards dictates that all vehicles must feature side curtain airbags by 2017. Due to its tight ergonomics, the Viper cannot fit them due to it not having the headroom to do so. As a result, Sergio Marchionne found it better to let it face its inevitable misfortune.

He promises of a future successor, perhaps with a revamped drivetrain and a new body style (which I commend him for in stating that he hopes to keep the name alive), but it’ll have to conform to a new era, an evolving demographic, and a different structure. The experience is going to be more diluted, communication between the road, car, and driver is going to become increasingly censored as modern safety, emissions, and fuel economy standards begin to take hold. To the Viper, regulations are Burmese pythons, constricting it while fights back, inevitably being asphyxiated.

Ironically, it ends with being snake bit by misfortune.

I cannot claim that I sat in a Viper’s seat. At the Barrett-Jackson Northeast Auction, which I went to, I was finally able to get up close to a Viper at full chat. In the distance was one, then two, snakes, one blue, the other red. Getting up close, I was eager for them to pass by, and the way the V10 growled made me hop back slightly. It felt unrefined and pure, angry and untamed, knowing no master. It laughed, shaking its rattle-like V10 as it ran for the next apex, while I stood there hypnotized by it.

Nothing else there, consisting of Hellcats, GT350R’s, Camaros, and a Focus RS, could compete with it in terms of panache and performance. It even made me think about our purchase of the Z06. One cannot deny the performance of the Z06, but the Viper cannot be disputed either, in base, TA, or ACR trim. They are equal now, a Vin to a Paul, and we still love them all. They remain at the zenith of American engineering, and buying either a Corvette or a Viper has its own unique pluses.

Ralph Gilles can be thanked for reawakening the Viper and releasing it under SRT’s name, and all we can do now for the next Viper is hope. In such cases as these, hope is all that we can hang on to, for hope is what allows us to look to the future positively. Sergio’s words should also be considered and commended; nobody is at fault for the Viper’s death. Regulations are clamping down, meaning that natural selection is occurring with those that conform. The hope is that if a new Viper is to be hatched from the old one’s eggs, it comes with mutations that will help it adapt to the new environment.

To the old Viper, however, nature has taken it to the next life.

Rest/race in Peace, Dodge/SRT Viper. 1992-2017