Viper Philosophy

Twister

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Wow.......


First off not everyones got a kool mil sitting in the bank.

Ive got a household income of a lil over 200k a year...sure I could afford a used lambo or possibly a f430 if I sold some of my dds and cut back on my savings but even then the maintanance would kill me.

I could easily afford any vette...

But heres the thing..

A vette or a porshe or gtr just dont seem that special or rare to me and I wouldnr feel comfortable parking them next to a lambo.

On the other hand my viper is easily affordable at my income and i currently can afford several other dds while enjoying the viper. Maintance is very very cheap compared to my nsx.

Despite being quite affordable though its looks can be parked next to anything and still give competition. Just the word viper has to be the koolest car name on the planet. At just 9 k srts in the world its more rare than a gallardo and half as rare as a fgt..

Then its not trying to be anything its not.

I always felt that my vette was trying to be a poor mans porshe and that my nsx was trying to be a poor mans ferrari...with my vipers it stands up proudly and says I aint trying to be a cheaper nothin. Im simply a leg burnin 8.3 liter v10 engined moster that youll rarely see from an era forgotten by all but those who remember what the usa was about before people started suin eachother over spilled cofee...

Go watch the movie stand by me.....morgan freeman as mr. Clark sums up better what the viper is better than anywords we can type
 

Dart451

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Wow.......


Go watch the movie stand by me.....morgan freeman as mr. Clark sums up better what the viper is better than anywords we can type


"Lean on me" is the film I think you are talking about
 

SnakeBitten

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Not to rain on your parade but...

ACR @ VIR: 2:48.60

ZR1 @ VIR: 2:45.63

http://www.digitalcorvettes.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1947713

Wow...I know it was done on different days, weather conditions etc but what was done to the 2012 ZR1 that made it go 6-7secs faster than the last ZR1 that was 3+ secs slower than that ACR time? Impressive time if it was bonestock 2012 ZR1. Thats quite an accomplishment to be 3 secs faster than an ACR.....I think the ACR needs to go back to VIR with the 2010 model this time.
 

PDCjonny

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Wow...I know it was done on different days, weather conditions etc but what was done to the 2012 ZR1 that made it go 6-7secs faster than the last ZR1 that was 3+ secs slower than that ACR time? Impressive time if it was bonestock 2012 ZR1. Thats quite an accomplishment to be 3 secs faster than an ACR.....I think the ACR needs to go back to VIR with the 2010 model this time.

I'm not sure but I was reading that there are different tracks there and it was an apples to oranges comparison?
Possible?
 

Twister

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Lean on me....mr. Clark is what the viper represents if that makes any sense at all...

Last i checked that zr1 was modified so it dosent count
 

V10TT

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To me the GTS back on its day was about putting the Superman Suit on, and stepping out of Clark Kent's clothes. Bad ass looks and it owned the road in power and acceleration on the hwy.

All the vettes, mustangs etc. that came up in the rear view, would just hang and watch.

Now with all the forced induction cars coming out of the factory it does not take much for a tune to really blow away the new viper, even at 700 hp.
To me it just will not have the same "owning the road feeling" a GTS had back in the 90s. Now a 911 TT, GTR, or Cobra that comes up in the mirror will not hang and watch, but will come up next to you and challenge you , knowing he will walk away...

Stock you say?, none of the modern FI cars on the road owned by the Gear heads are stock, and the factory FI car are way too easy to pick up 100 xtra hp. The days of Head/cam, loud exhaust etc. are over.

A tune and couple of lbs. of boost are easy on these cars and the HP return is great with no sacrifice in driveability at all.

To each their own, but to me that was what the GEN II was all about, and when it came out I felt depressed about owning a Vette.(408 stroker 90 ZR1)

Got a TT GTS now, so the feeling is the same when I take it out cruising...:D
 

SnakeBitten

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Well until verified specs on that ZR1 are known I'm going to continue to doubt it was a bonestock ZR1. Maybe it was on a different track config as mentioned then its apples to oranges exactly. A 6-7 secs improvement is HUGE and would mean that the 2012's Ring time would be a lot closer or faster than the ACR time.

If the 2012 ZR1 can have a 6-7 sec improvement on just a 4 mile track like VIR than it should have seen double digit seconds time improvement on the 13 mile long Ring over the old ZR1 time. But that is not remotely the case. Maybe Im overthinking here.
 

SnakeBitten

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I dont think its reasonable or fair to expect the new...ahem..GTS to recapture the magic of the original, timeless GTS. The automotive landscape is vastly different than 1996. Nothing under 200k had 450hp and 490lb tq with those....those lines back then. Now everything seems to be a supercar including sedans performance-wise. So crowded is the automotive field now that you wont stand out even with as 700hp mentioned.


The world had not seen anything like the GTS since the Daytona coupe graced the roads decades before, so the GTS just blew us away. They are essentially bringing back the same shape that still on the road today so the impact will never be like 1996 imho. So they have to have hp and performance to make this reborn GTS as intimidating as it was for so many years in the past. I still get goose bumps seeing one on the street.
 
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V10TT

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I hear you!, now do you remember back in the 90s Corvettes with TAGS like the one on this Video??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85B79wqkRcc&feature=player_embedded#!

I tell you what though, a V10 forced fed from Factory and the Entire Automobile industry on Planet Earth would have been "dumbfounded"

Or at least give us a car that is forced induction friendly like the early forged GTSs, with a computer that can be tuned by the aftermarket.

I think a forced induction V10 would have been the right answer for Chevy and Ford (NITE NITE BOYS SUPERMAN IS BACK), Forget the Italians, their philosophy is multivalve, small displacement, and 9k rpms.

Us is Brute force , in your face, What you got now uh??

 

Paul Hawker

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My 09 is already pretty traction limited with 600 hp. When I had my 03 Paxton, it just blew the tires off as the revs rose.

Wonder if adding a bunch more HP is really the answer.

Many people just want a higher number for bragging rights, but for most of the newer forced induction competition the computer just dials back the hp until the tires stop slipping. Lots of hp (and fun) going to waste right there.

Some of the new mega hp fords cannot begin to put down the hp. The suspension and tires cannot cash the check that the engine writes.

Still pretty excited to see what Dodge brings to the fight. Got a feeling it's gonna make a lot of people smile.
 

SnakeBitten

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I hear you!, now do you remember back in the 90s Corvettes with TAGS like the one on this Video??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85B79wqkRcc&feature=player_embedded#!

I tell you what though, a V10 forced fed from Factory and the Entire Automobile industry on Planet Earth would have been "dumbfounded"

Or at least give us a car that is forced induction friendly like the early forged GTSs, with a computer that can be tuned by the aftermarket.

I think a forced induction V10 would have been the right answer for Chevy and Ford (NITE NITE BOYS SUPERMAN IS BACK), Forget the Italians, their philosophy is multivalve, small displacement, and 9k rpms.

Us is Brute force , in your face, What you got now uh??


I don't remember those kinds of plates in the mid-late 90's when the GTS was dominant. But I do remember them in the early 2000's on Supras and the C5 Z06's that had a lot of work done to them. Those cars respective aftermarkets made them awefully competative with the bonestock or mildly modded Vipers.

Those were some raucous times on car forums all across the internet. Every car forum from Mustangs, Supra's to Vette's were all gunning for the GTS. The GTS was the benchmark. Unless you beat a GTS your car wasn't fast lol...How times have changed. With industry wide use of AWD and DCT transmissions don't expect a return to those dominant days of the GTS with the new RWD and manual Gen V Viper. I think the place to see the Vipers dominance will be, as it always has been, at the circuit tracks.

It still is unbeatable in the 1/4 mile however. None of the Lambo's or GTR's have come close to eclipsing 7 secs @ over 180-200mph in the 1/4 mile. The streets, however, now belong to AWD and DCT cars it seems.
 

Twister

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To me the GTS back on its day was about putting the Superman Suit on, and stepping out of Clark Kent's clothes. Bad ass looks and it owned the road in power and acceleration on the hwy.

All the vettes, mustangs etc. that came up in the rear view, would just hang and watch.

Now with all the forced induction cars coming out of the factory it does not take much for a tune to really blow away the new viper, even at 700 hp.
To me it just will not have the same "owning the road feeling" a GTS had back in the 90s. Now a 911 TT, GTR, or Cobra that comes up in the mirror will not hang and watch, but will come up next to you and challenge you , knowing he will walk away...

Stock you say?, none of the modern FI cars on the road owned by the Gear heads are stock, and the factory FI car are way too easy to pick up 100 xtra hp. The days of Head/cam, loud exhaust etc. are over.

A tune and couple of lbs. of boost are easy on these cars and the HP return is great with no sacrifice in driveability at all.

To each their own, but to me that was what the GEN II was all about, and when it came out I felt depressed about owning a Vette.(408 stroker 90 ZR1)

Got a TT GTS now, so the feeling is the same when I take it out cruising...:D




I completely disagree...

I own a 03 viper and it is still quite the benchmark..Im an street racer plain and simple. There are easily 50 vids on youtube of me raceing anything from turbo civics to lp570 gallardos...

Im modified to 550 rwhp with a few bolt ons and a camshaft. Ive utterly destroyed gtrs and supras even before the camshaft.

A viper is a 90k v10. I get calls bi weekly for people wanting to try the american exotic 8.3 liter.


The viper never lost anything. What happenned is people started buying the viper to look kool or cruise instead of what it was built for....raceing!


Look at the gen3 and gen2 section. In the past 2 years you will see maybe 5 post of people takeing there viper to the drag strip. On the otherhand go to the zr1 or gtr boards. and you will see people posting up drag raceing results on a weekly basis.

The viper never lost a dayum thing. Its owners just started turning into ****.......eeeeees
 

AFL in NJ

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I think the biggest difference between the Viper and other affordable supercars is that the Viper is polarizing....you either love it, or hate it...there's really no in between feeling. I like that the Viper challenges me to become a smoother driver to be fast, without having some electronic ****-bang-gadget to step in when my right foot and what I'm feeling aren't processed by my brain correctly.

Super exotics costing upwards of two Vipers will always do something better than the Viper, but they don't represent what the Viper does....lots of motor, aggressive styling, high limits in handling and for a price around $100k. For instance, a Ferrari 599 GTO (MSRP $383k) can do a lot of what an ACR can do....but I can have three (3) ACR's in different colors for different days. A Veyron has a higher top speed than the Viper, but I can have 12 Vipers and a kick-ass garage for the price of a Veyron. A Saleen S7 twin-turbo is faster than the Viper at some things, however, I can have 4-5 Vipers instead. Yes, the ZR1 and Z06 are the only American performance cars that the Viper is comparable to, however I'm betting at least 35% of the north american population can't tell a base corvette, from a Z06, from a ZR1....but with a Viper, that's not an issue.

The Viper holds a niche in the sports car marketplace and does it very well....us Viper owners get that....and more than a few people don't. (not that I care)

Regards,
Aaron
 

Paul Hawker

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The original Viper raised the bar, and others followed. Back in the dark days only the Viper ventured forth with raw, unbridled horsepower. Just like in the muscle car days, the gauntlet was thrown, and the Ford, Chevy Chrysler wars were reignited.

This has resulted in those other companies getting into the game, and they are leap frogging all over themselves to play the game, and provide the muscle that delights us all. The old performance cars were poor handling. This generation can carve corners with the best. Muscle cars were gross polluters, now the tail pipes sniff clean as can be. Early muscle cars were pretty dangerous, now we have crash safety zones, air bags and seat belts. Early carbs guzzled fuel, but the latest fuel injection versions are capable of pretty amazing fuel economy. This generation of performance vehicles have overcome the prior faults, and provide stellar performance while being good citizens.

Today, another game is in the news. Fuel economy, electric cars, hybrids, alternative fuels, alcohol blends, biodiesel, and 40+ MPG are the weapons of choice in this new battle for earth friendly vehicles and transportation.

With the US unwilling to tap their natural resources, the pressure is on to focus more on efficient vehicles, rather than on horsepower wars.

Viper can hold its head high, and be proud in what it has accomplished to provide a kick butt, energizing vehicle, but think these will soon be looked upon as "the good old days"
 

mnc2886

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Here is a point I feel is worth making in reference to some of these posts. One of my close friends is a huge car fanatic and is well versed on the subject at that. When he learned that I am planning to purchase a Viper, first thing he said was "you can spend a lot less on a Corvette and then mod it to go faster than a Viper." My response was that I wouldn't have a Viper if I did that. Next thing he asked was what if I lost to a Mustang or something in a race? He followed immediately with what would you tell that guy? I said that I wouldn't care because I would have a Viper.

Arguing over 0-60 and everything else is getting a little silly with todays current cars. GTRs, Lambos, Ferraris and some others are closer to playing a video game rather than driving. At the end of the day, the Viper is about nostalgia. When I see one, sure, I think about its performance capabilities, but first though is always "damn..."

Say what you want, but even that little hot wheels car got the same reaction out of me. I'm sold on a Gen V already.
 

alpha85

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Four trillion in new debt under this administration and you think they are doing a good job. You have got to be kidding me.
 

Twister

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I get ********** when vette guys compare the vette to the viper. They know as well as you do that people are gonna ask questions about the viper and wanna take pics ect and then if they are lucky throw the nice vette bone....

Thats just a fact. The vette came a long way with the z06...now within 15k of the vipers pricetag..but you dont get a v10. You dont get side exhaust. You dont get a rear difusser or vented hood or a profile in wich you can literally stick your fist under the side straight. You dont get under 9 k world wide.

You get a v8 with a regular exhaust setup and no viewable rear difusser or vented hood and a just barely there profile side straight coupled with the other 40k c6z06s in the world.

The viper is in its own niche. Compareing a souped up 75k vette to a viper is like compareing a souped up 60k mustang gt500 to the vette...650 hp this in that at the end of the day it will still be a mustang.
 

Vipertastic

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Wow...I know it was done on different days, weather conditions etc but what was done to the 2012 ZR1 that made it go 6-7secs faster than the last ZR1 that was 3+ secs slower than that ACR time? Impressive time if it was bonestock 2012 ZR1. Thats quite an accomplishment to be 3 secs faster than an ACR.....I think the ACR needs to go back to VIR with the 2010 model this time.

The ACR's time and the original ZR1's time was lapped by Car and Driver:
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/lightning-lap-2008-ll3-2008-dodge-viper-srt10-acr-page-21

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think they have the best of drivers to be setting lap times.
 

Bill Pemberton Woodhouse

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I'm puzzled why there is a question on the VIR times. We already know what a 2010 Viper ACR did to a 2012 ZR1 at Nurburgring, yet we are concerned by a 2012 beating the 08 Snake time. Just fast forward to the past year where a ACR beat the Miller Motorsports track record , held by a ZR1 prior, by almost 4 seconds. Once we even compare a 2 year old Viper , with the changed gears, we are ahead of the newer ZR1 anyway. The ACR is stout, but even we should not be surprised it took a 4 year newer model to beat it --- and yet that same 2012 model has already been handed back it's head with the improved 2010 Viper at virtually every track it has rerun.
 

eucharistos

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Here is a point..... My response was that I wouldn't have a Viper if I did that. .... I said that I wouldn't care because I would have a Viper.
....Say what you want, but even that little hot wheels car got the same reaction out of me.....

mnc2886 is a viper guy :2tu:
 
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black mamba1

black mamba1

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And there you have it.

Owning a new Viper is really still a combination of nostalgia and sports car dominance, with nostalgia owning a larger and larger percentage of why people are buying Vipers. I dare say less than ten percent of Viper owners are qualified to actually drive the Viper for what it is built for..and thats ********** in a circuit track course. I remember when I drove my Viper up at the Limerock track in CT. First, that kind of road racing is very difficult and demanding on both the body and the car. The g forces in the turns Vipers are capable of are tremendous to the point of almost unbearable for most drivers...and thats with an 04 stock suspension in my Viper. The ACR is pulling g's that are way beyond what most sports car drivers can sustain over the course of a full race. Few Viper owners are doing that.

What they are doing is what most sports car guys are doing..and that is pulling up besides other sports cars on the highway and challenging them. Any stock Viper older than the Gen 4 is gonna have problems with quite a few other stock sports cars out there. I think the Gen 5 will still defeat any sports car out there under $300k from 0 to 190 mph. Many, if not most Viper owners still want to have the fastest car in the streets...thats why so many are supercharged, have headers, cams...etc, we still want to win the road wars. My Viper was modded and if yall know anything about me my wife and I went "hunting" practically every weekend for other sports cars...and I NEVER lost a race...but I never came across a twin turbo Z06 or some other insanely powered car.

So, unless you are buying the Viper to race in a circuit course, you are buying it for nostalgia (the experience, the feel, connection, etc) unless you mod it. And, the problem with modding is everybody else is modding too.

When you get a chance go to the Aston Martin official website. I cannot help but feel sorry for Aston Martin owners...what in the hell are they actually doing over there? They are bragging about making a $275,000 3500 lb Zagato that comes with 510 hp? Are you kidding me? They are bragging about cars that get to 60 mph in 4.1 seconds? They even have a section on racing in their site...who are they racing against? Other Astons Martins? When we rented the Limerock track in CT we were able to get the track since we partnered up with the Aston Martin club. The Aston Martin owners made it very clear they didnt want any Vipers on the track while they were racing. And you know why. Aston Martin cant claim they are luxurious and sporty, Bentleys and Porshces and a few Benzes can outperform Aston Martins. All the Aston Martin owners have left is nostalgia...and only amongst themselves. Just like AC Cobras.

Right now Vipers claim to fame is we have the dominant road course car, the best looking and rarest American sports car made today, and that is no pushover in any kind of race. Priced so that most upper middle class hard working Americans can buy it, and you get a piece of history along with some present and future sports car technology. Well...I guess thats good enough for me :headbang:
 

C.Hermsen

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black mamba1:3049277 said:
I remember when I drove my Viper up at the Limerock track in CT...

...and if yall know anything about me my wife and I went "hunting" practically every weekend for other sports cars...

:omg:
...you tracked my baby!?!

:rolaugh:
 

V10TT

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What they are doing is what most sports car guys are doing..and that is pulling up besides other sports cars on the highway and challenging them. , we still want to win the road wars. :headbang:

I'm in your team!, but I suspect boosted/tuned GTRs, ZR1s, and GT500s are going to "*********" the new Viper...
 
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black mamba1

black mamba1

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C Hermsen, only once! After seeing a few supercharged Vipers with 700 rwhp spin out and lose it onto the grass, and after feeling like I just played 4 quarters of NFL football after fighting all those g forces in the turns for an hour...that was enough for me. I was ONE AND DONE. LOL..after that Herm...it was all road wars...and as you have probably discovered she handles those quite easily and quite well!
 

goldcup

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Seems like the long list of track records not to mention the ring record gives Team Viper alot to brag about. Not many production cars can
say they are the best in the world at anything! But I am somewhat biased:)
 
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