Dodge Viper
The legendary Viper is basically a street-legal race car, with nearly no amenities or creature comforts to speak of, but all the speed one could ever imagine. On the world's most demanding test track -- the Nürburgring, a 12.9-mile circuit in the mountains outside Nürburg, Germany -- the lap record is held by a 2009 Viper ACR, which bests even cars that cost five times as much.
But the Viper is in danger. Newer designs like the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 and Nissan GT-R nearly equal its performance and offer far more livability.
The product planners at Dodge are car enthusiasts and don't seem to want to live in a world without Vipers, so they have held back on officially announcing the vehicle's cancellation. But Dodge has halted production of the Viper, and publicly tried to sell the design rights to other automakers and even parts suppliers that don't build whole cars. Essentially, they're trying very hard to get rid of this car without taking the blame for killing it outright. The writing is on the wall for the legendary Viper.
