Unlike with humans, ailing car production is not subject to restrictive laws making euthanasia the logical option, yet so difficult to accomplish.
However, there are many car models out there that should have either never be conceived in the first place or put out of their misery long time ago. Sadly, the Dodge Viper is one of those cars, with Generation 5 warranting abortion long before even considered for production.
As this blog pointed out long time ago, in its original design and layout, with questionably effective stamped steel frame and pushrod V-10, Viper achieved its peak back in 2008, with Generation 4, delivering impressive variable valve timing, along with improved structural rigidity and several improvements setting it above the previous and unfortunately visually identical Generation 3.
What the Viper needed to make a progress and attract more buyers was a new, lighter and more rigid chassis, severe weight loss, elongated wheelbase and unique and easily recognizable exterior design.
Since Chrysler's new corporate owner, FIAT did not feel inclined to create an in house competition to its own Ferrari and Maserati hipo brands. Thus, instead of a decent budget and production line update, the Viper program ended up with jackshit instead, relying on existing chassis, engine and transmission to chug along, pretending to be a new car. If the mechanical aspects of this new Viper looked bad, its exterior and marketing plan happened to be much much worse.
For starters, the stylists decided to make the new Viper pretend it is a slightly modified Generation 2 car, making someone not familiar with the Viper fully confused as to what they were looking at. Were they looking at a new generation of Viper or a customized old Viper.?
To make the matter much much worse, the person in charge of Viper program, a megalomaniac named Ralph Gilles decided that a CEO on his business cards would look much more impressive on his business cards and resume than merely a program manager at Dodge. Thus, a bogus brand SRT was born, purely to satisfy the Giles' ego and confuse the buyers even more.
To top off the list of Viper and Giles fuck ups and shortcuts, the latest Viper experience the worst marketing campaign ever, a textbook example of what not to do while trying to sell new cars. The majority of the blame can be laid directly on Gilles and his Obama size ego combined with both delusion of grandeur and complete denial of reality. Sending half baked and apparently literally falling apart cars for automotive press testing, prior to commencing the sales already shows Gilles'es incompetence and inability to project positive light on its "accomplishment". But Gilles, for no other reason than his own ego, never admitted to the failures and instead blamed test drivers and everything else but himself.
If this was not bad enough, after charging participating dealers 25k for the privilege of being included on the list of SRT dealers, these dealers, making living off selling and servicing mini vans and pick up trucks were allowed to practically skin the buying suckers alive, charging them truly obscene mark up on the cars that were not even available for delivery. Then, in the turn even stranger, the same dealers received the cars they ordered for showroom sales while the buyers who already placed their orders were not surprisingly left out in the cold, waiting and waiting.
As expected, the sales never happened and the unqualified dealers got exactly what they deserved: unsold cars and resentment from potential buyers.
Although there were numerous attempts by Chrysler to reverse the Viper failure, in the end, the attempts such as discounts offered to CURRENT GENERATION 5 owners only and reverting to Dodge brand only made the matters worse.
And now, the Viper is officially dead and hopefully it will stay that way!!! To the credit of the new Viper boss, Tim Kuniskis, the ACR edition of Viper happened once again and it did manage a the impressive number of track records around the USA, giving the frustrated buyers at least a partial sense of vindication for spending a serious chunk of money on a pretty obsolete otherwise car.
As this blog pointed out long time ago, a rehash of the previous generations of the car is not what the car needed. Viper, in its pushrod engine, stamped steel frame and short wheel base configuration achieved its peak in the previous generation (as documented by the Nurburgring lap time that even the newest plastic fantastic piece of shit C7 Z06 failed to beat.
Ironically enough, the main reason why this pathetic Viper revival happened, allowing Gilles to stroke his ego and add bullshit title to his business cards, failed to materialize and Gilles, fired from his job, faded away in infamy instead of fame he craved for so much.
Now, the real question is, will the Viper stay dead or will Chrysler and Fiat slap the Viper name on another piece of shit just like Fiat did recently with 2017 Fiat 124 Spider which in reality is nothing else than new Mazda Miata with new tacky bumpers, badges and engine even less powerful (and reliable) than the real Miata uses.
Or maybe, there will be a four door Viper, just like it happened with Dodge Charger?
Here is another irony, this blog stated long time ago that there is only one way for Viper to make its come back- as a mid-engine (in the classic way, not with the engine up front and using technicality) supercar, using high tech engine and choice of DTC and manual transmissions. The starting point is already there, in the form of Alfa 4C but... considering that the car would be competing with upper end Ferrari cars, it is unlikely to happen. Thus, let the sleeping dogs DIE, not die.
