I need to do a little write up on the Viper for the Members Rides section. It's definitely an oddity. It might be worth something in 10 or 15 years or so
. I "built" it during my tenure as the tech editor at Mopar Muscle Magazine and Musclecar Review way back in late 1992/93. I watched the car get assembled at the New Mack assembly plant and photographed the entire process. We used it as a magazine project car for 2 years. Got a bunch of back door help from Dodge. At the time they couldn't paint the car blue for us because the panels all came prepainted from their vendor, so instead they provided us with all the paint and prototype blue emblems to redo the entire car immediately after delivery. During the magazine days I used to race it at Sebring International Raceway in SCCA class ASP (A-Street Prepared). I even held a lap record for a year until the car was pretty much declared obsolete by the introduction of the Viper Coupes in the same class. The car now has 7700 "Sunday only" miles on it! After driving it today I forgot how truly scary the first gen Vipers were
. If you don't have both hands on the wheel at all times, even when shifting
you will be in deep doo-doo very fast! Probably like driving a Cheetah back in the 60's