Apparently it had to take Viper sales to remain at stand still for two years straight before Fiat executives finally figured out it is time to pull the plug on SRT "brand" and its CEO, Ralph Gilles.
This short but quite memorable existence of SRT brand will go down in the history of automotive world as one of the most resounding failures, right alongside of Edsel.
The idea was beyond silly from the get go: lumping together several souped up mainstream Chrysler vehicles, along with Viper and pretend they are distinct enough to turn them into separate car models and then sell them through the same run of the mill Chrysler dealers who happened to make their profits off mini vans and pick up trucks-absolutely ridiculous notion altogether.
They irony of the whole situation is the fact that the only original vehicle in SRT line up, Viper became the biggest victim of the ill thought out scheme. First, the best SRT could do with Viper was to give it a super rudimentary make over, recycling the same chassis and engine, dressing it up in a Generation 2 look alike skin while failing to deliver a roadster version or ability to custom tune and modify the car by removing the engine management software encryption (or even better, use another software altogether).
Then, the same SRT managed to turn off the buyers support by royally screwing over the first buyers who special ordered their vehicle and give the mini van dealers priority in obtaining the vehicles (and neither SRT or the dealers bothered to do any market research at all, before ordering options that nobody wanted) while the actual buyers had to wait for several months, kept in the dark.
The next step of SRT disaster consisted of super sloppy and careless attitude toward the automotive press, including delivery of press cars with parts literally falling off the cars and bald and mismatched tires. What even made the publicity worse was the attitude coming from Ralph Gilles, busy pointing fingers and blaming others for the screw ups and bad reviews, while lacking the balls to face the music and admitting his own faults.
The final step of this SRT demise came courtesy of the greedy dealers who idiotically assumed that ordering the more expensive version of the Viper, GTS, loading the cars to the max and on top of it, demand MARK UP would make their cars fly off their showroom floors.
Add to it super rude sales staff, no test rides and lack of financial incentives and realistic and attractive financing options and it is actually a surprise that there was a 2014 model year at all.
The fact that not only the 2014 Vipers continue to sit unsold but there are literally hundreds of unsold 2013 Vipers can be easily seen as the final nail in the Viper's coffin.
By now, it will take a miracle to see a 2015 version of Viper, even as a Dodge. The reality is that there is no budget to support any meaningful upgrades and on top of it, there are hundreds of unsold Vipers still branded as SRT Viper.
It is doubtful that Ralph or anyone else on SRT team can figure out that until all of the unsold cars are gone, there is option to continue with the Viper.
One thing is clear: Ralph Gilles is completely unfit to lead the Viper program and finding someone competent and with at least an ounce of common sense should be the first step in any further Viper development.
If this does not happen, the Viper is better off dead, just another memory from the past.
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