The Viper is dead

[SVT666]

The Viper ranks right up there with my favourite cars of all time and I still desperately need a first gen Viper GTS.  The most badass car of all time.  I love it.

[S204STi]

I like the first generation more than the second. I guesse one day we'll see what these beast command at Barret-Jackson 20 years from now. 

They'll be going for original MSRP or more, I predict.  Sort of like Ferraris of some models.

[r0tor]

the end of the modern muscle car era kills off another car -sigh-

[Raza]

Iacocca did a commercial with Snoop Dogg for Chrysler, I believe.  A few years back, around the time of the introduction of the 300C.

[Raza]

The Viper ranks right up there with my favourite cars of all time and I still desperately need a first gen Viper GTS.  The most badass car of all time.  I love it

Oh, don't get me wrong.  I love the car.  Great looks, massive brutality, and almost unprecedented appeal.  I mean, just looking at the car you can tell driving it is a visceral experience.  Hell, looking at it is almost a visceral experience.  I'm just surprised the market was able to sustain it so long.

[the Teuton]

Iacocca did a commercial with Snoop Dogg for Chrysler, I believe.  A few years back, around the time of the introduction of the 300C.

The money from the commercial was donated to Iacocca's charity from his part.  In his book, he said that he couldn't understand a word Snoop said.

[Tave]

Oh, don't get me wrong.  I love the car.  Great looks, massive brutality, and almost unprecedented appeal.  I mean, just looking at the car you can tell driving it is a visceral experience.  Hell, looking at it is almost a visceral experience.  I'm just surprised the market was able to sustain it so long.

I think it had a lot to do with market volume. By pushing relatively few cars, they could afford to offer something unique. They didn't need to compromise the car to reach new buyers. All they needed was a small but steady, loyal customer base.

If Chrysler wasn't hemorrhaging at the moment, I bet the Viper would stick around.

[the Teuton]

Chrysler is dead.  What innovation that catapulted the company into the forefront of the automotive industry from the 1990s currently remains today?  Okay, they make nice minivans with toys, but Honda makes a nicer van at the moment.  I ask again, where's the spirit that made the company great?

[Eye of the Tiger]

Chrysler is dead.  What innovation that catapulted the company into the forefront of the automotive industry from the 1990s currently remains today?  Okay, they make nice minivans with toys, but Honda makes a nicer van at the moment.  I ask again, where's the spirit that made the company great?

[J86]

Aw, that's too bad.  Raw car, always badass looking.

[Raza]

Although, there are many years between now and 2011.  Who knows what might happen? 

[Gotta-Qik-C7]

Iacocca did a commercial with Snoop Dogg for Chrysler, I believe.  A few years back, around the time of the introduction of the 300C.

I remember. They were playing golf together. For-shizzel!

[omicron]

And yet another delightful anachronism of the American motor industry dies. A sad day, indeed.

[TheIntrepid]

where's the spirit that made the company great?

Here it is...

[280Z Turbo]

And yet another delightful anachronism of the American motor industry dies. A sad day, indeed.

The Viper's not dead.

It's not like they're crushing all the old ones like GM did with their electric EV-1's.

Plus, they're still making them for a few more years to come. Put the black suits, flowers, and casket away!

[the Teuton]

Here it is...

Or...

[Laconian]

Here it is...

Heh heh..

[Rupert]

Yes, that was a pun waiting to happen.

[ChrisV]

Or...

Actually, the Prowler did pretty good. it was proof of the team approach to low volume carmaking inside a large company. Like the Viper, the Prowler proved you could make a low volume car and make money on it. It was sucessful enough to survive the killing off of Plymouth, then stayed as it's own brand before becoming a Chrysler.

I'm sorry, but the Viper should have stayed raw and uncompromising, rather than trying to be an expensive Corvette. As Lutz said when he came up with the idea, no one builds raw mucle anymore. Why not buy into the mindset that builds Cobra replicas?

Like hemi, I want a GTS ACR badly. I've driven them (a couple friends have them) on the street and on the track, and am quite enamored of the raw brutality that is the Viper. Not every car has to be refined to be desirable.

[r0tor]

personally, i think they saved the best for last

[Soup DeVille]

I'm sorry, but the Viper should have stayed raw and uncompromising, rather than trying to be an expensive Corvette. As Lutz said when he came up with the idea, no one builds raw mucle anymore. Why not buy into the mindset that builds Cobra replicas?

I have to agree with you, but apparently not enough people seemed to "get it."

Everybody wants a 911 or a Vette fighter, and they want to be coddled while doing so.

[Tave]

personally, i think they saved the best for last

HA! At least on that, they kept the front nubbins off the "body." That is acceptable. If they have to put those heinous stubs on, they should do it like that.

[Rich]

nubbins......heinous stubs .....

What are you talking about?

[Raza]

Actually, the Prowler did pretty good. it was proof of the team approach to low volume carmaking inside a large company. Like the Viper, the Prowler proved you could make a low volume car and make money on it. It was sucessful enough to survive the killing off of Plymouth, then stayed as it's own brand before becoming a Chrysler.

I'm sorry, but the Viper should have stayed raw and uncompromising, rather than trying to be an expensive Corvette. As Lutz said when he came up with the idea, no one builds raw mucle anymore. Why not buy into the mindset that builds Cobra replicas?

Like hemi, I want a GTS ACR badly. I've driven them (a couple friends have them) on the street and on the track, and am quite enamored of the raw brutality that is the Viper. Not every car has to be refined to be desirable.

A death announcement this far in advance seems like it might be a ploy.  I just wanted to get that out there.

And the demand pool for a car like the Viper was just too small.  I love the car, so do you, so does Hemi, but not one of us is in the demand pool.  My dad, for example, could be, but he doesn't want a car that raw. 

It's why an unrefined car like the Mustang can survive, but the Viper's been destined for extermination since it debuted.

[FordSVT]

Base Corvette?

Sweet God, no.

[Nethead]

The Death Certificate of the Viper was printed the day DCX officially decided to stop offering the V10 in Ram trucks--and now we know that the issue date of that Death Certificate will be sometime in 2011.  There was no way in Hell that the costly V10 was gonna be kept in production at solely Viper sales volumes. And to have any kind of decent performance with the Hemi meant that a much smaller, lighter vehicle would have to be developed--the performance of the Challenger SRT8 Hemi is proof enough of that.  You may find that Chrysler may close that production line earlier than 2011 if they can find a way to swing it--UAW contracts, subcomponent manufacturer contracts, yada yada yada...

This also means you can pretty much kiss good-bye to hopes for a V10 Charger--the V10 is an engine option the Charger should have had all along.

Sad, sad news...

The one hope is that rich dudes will buy the plant, the tooling, the copyrights, and whatever else it takes to keep producing 'em as the sole product of The Viper Sportscar Company, or whatever...This happened to the Studebaker Avanti in the late 'Sixties and kept the Avanti in production in Saint Louis as a sporty luxury car for a number of years after Studebaker went belly up, although the Studebaker 289 was swapped out for a GM 350 and the headlights went from round to square.

[Soup DeVille]

The Death Certificate of the Viper was printed the day DCX officially decided to stop offering the V10 in Ram trucks--and now we know that the issue date of that Death Certificate will be sometime in 2011.  There was no way in Hell that the costly V10 was gonna be kept in production at solely Viper sales volumes. And to have any kind of decent performance with the Hemi meant that a much smaller, lighter vehicle would have to be developed--the performance of the Challenger SRT8 Hemi is proof enough of that.  You may find that Chrysler may close that production line earlier than 2011 if they can find a way to swing it--UAW contracts, subcomponent manufacturer contracts, yada yada yada...

This also means you can pretty much kiss good-bye to hopes for a V10 Charger--the V10 is an engine option the Charger should have had all along.

Sad, sad news...

The one hope is that rich dudes will buy the plant, the tooling, the copyrights, and whatever else it takes to keep producing 'em as the sole product of The Viper Sportscar Company, or whatever...This happened to the Studebaker Avanti in the late 'Sixties and kept the Avanti in production in Saint Louis as a sporty luxury car for a number of years after Studebaker went belly up, although the Studebaker 289 was swapped out for a GM 350 and the headlights went from round to square.

The Avanti motor company was in business into the 1990s, IIRC.

Anyways, the sort of bureacratic red tape that would have to be waded through to do that sort of thing again is enough to ruin any business model of that sort.

[SVT666]

This also means you can pretty much kiss good-bye to hopes for a V10 Charger--the V10 is an engine option the Charger should have had all along.

The Viper V10 and the Ram V10 and not the same engine.  They used to be fairly similar but over the years the engines took drastic turns to differentiate themselves from each other.

[Nethead]

The Avanti motor company was in business into the 1990s, IIRC.

Anyways, the sort of bureacratic red tape that would have to be waded through to do that sort of thing again is enough to ruin any business model of that sort.

Soup DeVille:  Sadly, SoupDude, you have revealed another sign of the times--strangling red tape everywhere you turn...

The Nethead here lost track of the Avanti while I was in the Service--I became a motorcycle dude and didn't own car or truck for going on four years...It's possible that I might have gone many more years without a car or truck except for the job I took when I got out of the Army--working on a crew building the steel towers that carry high-tension cables through the countryside--ten hours/day, four days/week, and eight hours on Fridays.  Carrying galvanized steel is hard work--I was ripping up clothes and wearing out boots & gloves so fast that I just couldn't carry enough work clothing on the bike to make it a week.  Traveling from site to site often put 500 miles/week on the bike, so I broke down and got a truck to carry more necessities in the cab and the bike in the back.  When I finally could afford a new '73 Datsun truck, I got a vehicle as fitting to my lifestyle as any vehicle ever could be--I only traded it for a Dodge B150 van when the WifeDude was seven months along on our second child (two child seats won't fit noway/nohow between two adults in the bench seat of a '73 Datsun truck).  Somewhere during this disjointed life, the Avanti quietly slipped into the dusty annals of automotive history and I wasn't even aware of it--sadness deep in your stomach like when you find out one of your old hang-outs has been razed and a time-share high-rise has taken its place...

[Nethead]

The Viper V10 and the Ram V10 and not the same engine.  They used to be fairly similar but over the years the engines took drastic turns to differentiate themselves from each other.

HemiDude:  Yeah--the one was cast in iron and the other in aluminum, for starters.  But that's kinda moot when the one is already out of production and the other is out drinkin' hard every night with the Grim Reaper, y' know? 

Was it back in the old Car and Driver forum that I asked you how was DCX gonna justify continuing production of the Viper now that the V10 was no longer in the trucks?  Jalopnik has provided that answer...