When the Dodge Viper first came along nearly twenty years ago, it was America’s chance to finally get back into the supercar market. The last car that the Big Three produced that could even come close to being called a supercar would be the GT40, and those hadn’t been made for decades. So the Dodge Viper was a godsend in so many ways. Flash forward to 2010, and the Viper is on its way out.
Or is it? Ralph Giles, chief in charge of the Viper brand, talked about what the Viper currently is, and what it could become; a race-only car.
As Giles says, “Great cars don’t disappear; they become race cars.” There is some truth to that we suppose, though many of the greatest cars (Mustang, Camaro, Corvette) have managed to stick around for forty years or more as both street and race cars. But on the same token, we’d rather have a race-only Viper, than no Viper at all. And with the launch of a Viper-only race series, and numerous one-off Vipers and special racing Vipers (ACR-X anybody?) this seems to be the direction the Dodge brand is taking the Viper.
Still, while the Viper has always been financially out of reach for most of us, they were not an altogether uncommon sight at car shows and race tracks across the country. That has always been part of the appeal of the Viper; it was a race car for the street. If it becomes just a race car though, does that dilute the Viper name? Or does it improve it, making it truly an elite car? What do you guys think?
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Video: Future Of The Viper Race-Only?
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