Tinkerbell
The story all began on May 4th 2014 at about 4:45 in the afternoon.
I was attending a Lamborghini event at the Laguna Seca RaceWay in California for one day only. As I was crossing the grass inner track area during the afternoon, I noticed Dodge had a display of all their new models of vehicles that were coming up for sale soon. A few of them were trucks, a few SUVs, and a few of them were sedans. Most were common colors or black and white. Then suddenly I saw the biggest jaw dropper of all time.....an unbelievably magical green Dodge Viper.
I literally stopped mid stride did an abrupt turn and walked in an immediate beeline towards it! To say it was love at first sight was an understatement. A grin slid across my face and both my earlobes were wet. I had and am still an owner of a 2002 bright red RT-10 Viper and I loved and still love that car, but when I saw THAT GREEN the world suddenly stopped.
After walking around the vehicle a few times the salesman came up to me and asked if I wanted to sit in it. Needless to say he didn't have to ask twice. I very gently got into the car like it was made out of glass. I just sat there for 5 minutes admiring it. When I got out I turned back to look again at the inside and was sorry to see that many people had probably sat in the vehicle because the poor seat bolsters and foot sill area had a lot of scratches on it already {sad}. I actually felt a little bad for the car to be so beautiful and carelessly scratched by people getting in and out of it that day. I of course couldn't leave without taking at least a good half dozen photos of me against the car for memories of that color. I found out the color of course was Stryker Green. Little did I know I would never ever see that color in person again until the day I owned the car, but I did know that someday.... I would own that car!
The next piece of the Stryker Green quest came very slowly. After my discovery on May 4th 2014 of the green Viper I had purchased several other items including a motorhome, a custom chopper motorcycle and decided to pay off my home. I had never forgotten my one and only day seeing and sitting in the green Viper though.
I'd printed out a large photo of me next to it and put it on my dream wall in the man cave which I saw often and much. I also found an amazing rendering of a green Gen 5 convertible Viper concept. That also got printed out and put on the man cave dream wall as well. Every now and then I would poke around on the internet looking for a Stryker Green Viper. They veryyyy seldomly came up for sale and when they did the price did not seem attainable for myself.
Fast forward to October of 2017.
As I randomly did every 6 months or so looking for that car, I decided to get on the internet and Google Stryker Green Viper for sale. One popped up that had come on the market very recently! It was at a dealership which was known for doing a large number of Dodge Viper sales. The dealership also was only a 5-hour drive from where I have been working for four months out of state on a job. I ended up spending the better part of about a month going back and forth with the dealership on multiple things on the car. I finally decided to go ahead and let them do a loan application for me. They had promised me up and down the wall that they had a new way to run loan applications that would not affect my credit score. I'm very cautious and careful about my score and try never to do anything that will affect it in a negative way. The salesman and I had a pretty decent rapport but I did not know anything about the finance guy. I should have trusted my instinct and not trusted the finance manager there. They took my information and shotgun blasted it to eight different lenders and my credit score fell 30 points in one day. I was SOOOOO angry and let them have it with both barrels on the phone and email. After all the work and research and going back and forth and stuff and then promising a loan application would not affect my credit I felt completely lied to and kicked in the stomach. I got so angry at the whole situation I walked away from the car.
The story of how that dealership actually came by the car is VERY fascinating and itself is its own story! The YouTube video link listed below has approximately 650,000 views and explains how the car came from the original 1st Canadian owner into the dealerships possession in America. Apparently things had gone so sideways that it had taken months for them to get it. They had the car for just a little while when I initially saw it and had no idea about the backstory to it.
If It wasn't for the way they handled it financially with me I would have driven 5 hours and picked up the car that next following week but it was not meant to be.
So this is where my second interaction with this colored car came to an end.
See below the conclusion to the Tinkerbell saga.
Photos of the actual car at their dealership In October of 2017.
Rendering I put up on the man cave dream wall
Cover photo of the YouTube video about my actual car that the dealership
So the next evolution of this vehicle and I started on October 3rd 2019.
After the previous boondoggle by the dealership finance manager I had walked away but still occasionally kept my eye on the market every now and then for Stryker green vipers. After almost 6 months of not looking I decided to look on eBay. Unbelievably just one day before a Stryker Green Viper was listed for sale there! I carefully looked over the pictures and scrutinized them and came to a very very interesting conclusion. I sent the seller/ gentleman a message on eBay asking him some questions.
He got back to me shortly thereafter.
The car that I was looking at that had come up for sale one day before......was the exact car that the boondoggle dealership had for sale two years earlier!!!!! The gentleman that currently owned it had bought it about a month after I walked away from the deal at the dealership. It was now living down in the Miami Florida area for those last two years. Needless to say I was very excited and amazed at the same time that this exact car came back into my world. The timing was incredible. I mean honestly, if you don't look for months and months and months and suddenly get on the internet and the car that you almost bought was listed the day before what are the chances of that?
So I went ahead and decided to purchase it this time. It took about a month to get all the financing squared away and another month to get the shippers to pick it up and bring it to the Northwest Seattle area.
As soon as she arrived I literally got to drive the car about 150 ft from the transport truck delivery trailer into Wrapjaxs. I was going to spare no expense with the color of this cars paint. I immediately had it cleaned and then a 100% clear PPF film applied to the entire vehicle. After that she got two coats of a ceramic coating. One of the aftermarket carbon fiber side skirts had also been damaged by the previous owner so I walked into what turned out to be a very challenging situation to get a replacement for that. I was able to source and locate a brand new set which took about a month to have made and shipped and FedEx was kind enough to break the brand new set in the exact spot that the first set on the car were broken!! Another set was purchased and shipped much more carefully and eventually the PPF film from Xpel came after a long delay from the factory and this car was the first Viper known that has had the entire hood done in one single 72"wide piece and the entire roof and pillars also done in one single piece without a seam!
Eventually after all the carbon fiber parts and the clear PPF was finished I finally got to take it home.
It had been nearly 2 months after I drove it the 150 ft from the trailer into the wrapping facility. All told it was a very long wait from when I first saw it in the spring of 2014 until I finally got it home in the winter of 2020. Although the entire world has had the Corona virus take a big bite out of it and all the car shows I had planned to attend with it have been canceled this year I have nonetheless made the best of it. I have had some amazing photo shoots done. I've had custom things made for the car and awesome showboards and trinkets designed for when car shows are back on track. The amount of amazing photos from amazing photographers and some awesome local drives with different clubs have made Tinkerbell a star of the Northwest.
She has been on several YouTube videos and has been promoted heavily with Griot's Garage in Tacoma Washington with more stuff to come from them soon! Tinkerbell has participated in scavenger hunts and leading a pack of 12 Vipers up to local mountain ranges for drives with fun folks. Hey let's just say she is an extremely loved vehicle and appreciated by all here in the northwest. That in a nutshell is my three-part series on how I first saw the car on the grass lawn that one day to now taking her out with enormous pride and recognition and photos from so many people locally!
DiverDave
