03-Best of all possible worlds

[Frank 03SRT]

I was thinking -- what caused the 03 RT to look and perform like it does/will? What did Dodge management tell its designers at project start? How about this:
1. Find savings from the current way of building this car, but still have a hand built one.
2. Keep the price to about $75K so that current owners can afford them.
3. Give viper folks their performance wishes.
4. Plow savings from 1. back into the car.
5. And, the big one for the Dodge corporation image, make the car a winner.

Answers:
1. How were the savings accomplished? One item I can think of is the hood -- that thing costs Dodge, what, $10K in materials? Fitting it must be real tough. How about the gas cap? There must be others.
2. By decreasing costs, they approach satisfying the price limit.
3. It is appearing that Dodge has more than satisfied performance wishes, by what we hear from those in the know. From what I hear, the current beautiful "swoopy" design degraded perforrmance because of increased drag. Therefore, it probably had to go.
4. Plowing savings back into the car gets us the performance characteristics and other goodies we wanted.
5. By having a design with less drag, while still maintaining the basic Viper look, yet with much higher performance, Dodge satisfies their image needs.

So, I believe, as some past philosopher said, we probably "have the best of all possible worlds". Dodge gets what they need to even be allowed to produce this car, and we get the hottest car on the road for the price, and it still looks great.

 

[Steve Ferguson]

The original Viper was build to the specs of a show car. That was the mission, and one they did a fantastic job doing. The body was an instant classic, but it also posed many problems like cost, aero-dynamics and fit and finish.

Though we all LOVE our Viper, many owners have asked for more power, better brakes, higher top speeds and more comfort. To gain these features, the Chapter 3 Viper had to be build from the ground up with those issues at the fore front. Judging by what had been accomplished, Team Viper has given us more than we could have ever hoped for!

How mean of them to produce this beast. Many people will be eating crow and dust particles when they see the performance figures hit the street.