Dodge Viper reportedly a victim of Project Genesis
Some of the possible Chrysler product cuts are easy to understand. Who would miss the Jeep Compass, Dodge Nitro, or any number of others potentially on the chopping block?
But what about the Dodge Viper? According to
Jalopnik (
here), a decision has been made, and if that's true, its days may well be numbered. Now why on earth would they do that, you ask?..
Well, how many do they sell? That should give you a clue. You can thank Chrysler's new Project Genesis for this. If it doesn't make the Cerberus bean counters happy, out the door it goes...
Assuming this is true, it is indeed sad news for anyone with gasoline flowing through their veins, whether you're a Viper fan or not. Let's just hope
Jalopnik is wrong on this one...
- Permalink | Comments (11)
- Posted by: Bob Holland February 8, 2008, 1:01 PM
- Categories: Chrysler, Dodge
Wow, Viper is like one of the most respected cars in the company, and they wan to cut it off... So dumb.
In 19 years basically all they've done is make the engine larger every year and get bigger brakes. At some point (and I think that point has passed) they need to do a complete redesign, or throw in the towel. A sad day indeed, as it was with the NSX or countless other cars. Hopefully they have some sort of halo car in the pipeline?
Who buys this thing that's essentially been unchanged for eons.
435 of these were sold in 2007.
Too much engineering for nobody buying.
What can you really do with this car, other than race it on a track?
Then again, there is a need for halo cars. Question is, what halo will Project Genesis choose? If they pick a cheap, crappy one, they'll need all the luck they can get.
Hopefully the money saved will be spent making the rest of the lineup competitive.
What they should do is just put some $ into making the car a little more streetable, and they'd be able to siphon off a lot of Z06 buyers. The simple fact that this car is so harsh to drive on a daily basis is what kills sales. Leave the ACR edition for the harsh drive. I drove one of these because a friend of mine works at the Dodge dealership, and it was one of the most awful drives of my life. I loved the power, but when I look at the $80K+ market of cars, I just couldn't see it as a daily driver like an SL or 6 series.
"and they'd be able to siphon off a lot of Z06 buyers"
But how many Z06 buyers are around out there to siphon off?
I don't know the sales numbers but you don't see a lot of new Vettes on the road these days.
It's just not a high volume or profitable market for anyone. The Viper has it's little niche as the class brute and if you try to make it anything else, it won't work.
I always liked it's bad a$$ image. The Corvette is likely a better car in everyway but I can't remember the last time I saw one that wasn't been driven by a grey haired driver. It's really in danger of being known as an old mans car.
At least the Viper (like it's forefather, the Cobra) is going out with it's reputation intact.
I'll miss it.
If they are going to stop building this they better build the Dodge Demon concept
Is sad to see the Viper go. A true classic of American Iron.
Every person who wanted a Viper and could afford one already has one.
We're talking about 36 sales per month in the entire country. Less than 1 per state for the entire month.
Plus, Viper looks back at a muscle car past - Cerburus is thinking of a 35 MPG CAFE future.
Could this be a start of phasing out Dodge models like Dodge Neon. I hope not.