FUSCUCLA,
I was thinking about this the other day... and I think Dodge did the only thing they could. After all, how can they verify that you are the current owner of your Viper? For any given VIN#, Vipers may have had 2, 3 or more owners. They would need to ensure that only current owners get certs. Or why even limit it to current owners? What about guys who owned Vipers for years, but just decided to sell last month? Aren't they good candidates to get certificates? I'd say so. So, if you allow anyone who ever owned a Viper to get a 2003, how do you prove each person owned the car?
Second, and I don't mean to sound rude, but anyone buying a used Viper didn't really do anything for Dodge in terms of money. Dodge doesn't see a dime from anyone who bought used. Some can say they are "good" VCA members - but that still doesn't mean they added to Dodge's bottom line. And how do you define "good VCA members"? How mad would the people be who didn't make the cut?
But the real answer is that Dodge had an idea how many they were interested in giving certificates to. They can't realistically give all 12,000+ Viper owners certificates... but how do you exclude only some? Do you do it by length of ownership? Not fair to the new buyers really. You can't do it by VCA membership, because all new owners get a year free from the VCA.
So I think Dodge did all they really could do. They had to create conditions that were reasonable and fair to everyone... they had to reward the "most loyal" of people (people who contributed to their bottom line by buying a Viper from Dodge through a dealer), and they had to create a group that was not so small that nobody qualified, but not so large that they give out more certificates than they have 2003 Vipers.
I think they did it just right (of course, I am a member of the "lucky" group), but I don't think anyone would be able to propose another method that is easy to manage, fair to everyone, does not create too big or too small of a group, and rewards people who actually did something for Dodge.
I give the guys/gals at Dodge all the credit in the world for doing the program this way. They did exactly the right thing!
Thanks Dodge