Three-year hibernation for Dodge Viper
The final production run of the now legendary American sports car will feature improved aerodynamics, a revised interior, new colours and decals, changes to the rear wing, a new short throw gear shifter and a shorter fifth-gear ratio.
While the last of the fourth generation Vipers will make their debut at January's Los Angeles motor show, Chrysler boss Ralph Gilles has already flagged some exciting plans for the reborn 2012 version. Gilles says there will even be input from Ferrari and Maserati. "We're going to keep Dodge's performance icon alive and well by not only producing some of the most special Vipers ever built, but we're also investigating what the next generation Viper is going to be.
"When we have partners across the ocean who are known as the best sports carmakers in the world, the future opportunities are huge," he added.
In a lead-up to the release of the final Viper production run, a SRT10 ACR (American Club Racer) has recaptured the production car lap record at the Saguna Seca road course in Monterey, California. With SRT (Street and Racing Technology) vehicle dynamics engineer Chris Winkler behind the wheel, the car clocked a lap record of 1:33.915 around the 2.238-mile, 11-turn course to beat the previous lap record by more than 1.1 seconds. The achievement was even greater because of the fact that Winkler had completed just one practice session at the track before embarking on his record breaking drive.
In 2008, professional race driver Randy Pobst drove a 2008 Viper ACR to a one lap, production car record of 1:35.117 at Laguna Seca. That record stood until last August when the most recent record of 1:35.075 was established by a one off exotic prototype known as the Devon GTX that was actually a Viper based car.
Commenting on his record-breaking run, Chris Winkler said, "The Dodge Viper ACR has amazing power and handles like a dream, so following my first practice, I came away pretty confident that we'd be able to set a new record," he said.
Dodge boss Ralph Gilles was impressed with the Viper's performance. "I've been closely tied to this car my entire career and even after owning one myself for some time, I'm still amazed with what the Dodge Viper can do on and off the race track," he said.
Armed with its 8.4-litre, V10 engine that delivers 450kW of peak power at 6000rpm and 760Nm of torque at 5600rpm, the Viper can sprint to 100km/h in less than four seconds and go from 0-160-0 km/h in 11 seconds flat. The history of the now iconic Viper goes back to 1989 when Dodge developed and tested the first prototype version. A preproduction car made its debut in 1991 and the first generation cars went on sale in 1992.
The second generation version arrived in 1996 and the third generation roadsters that debuted in 2003 were joined in 2005 by a coupe version.
The fourth generation roadster and coupe went on sale in 2008.
In all, more than 25,000 Vipers have now been sold around the world and over the years a small but healthy number have made it to Australia.
