One thing I don't get is how people can say that Vipers always got "bad press" throughout the ages. My recollection was that during the years between 1991 and 1998 Vipers were getting great press. Sure, some of the magazines said some things that were based on "personal opinion" like calling the car "cartoonish" - but the reality is I have several boxes of old magazines where journalists were extolling the virtues of the car like crazy. Things like "perfect steering", "incredible balance on the track", "more torque than a locomotive", "insanely fun", "so much fun that it should be illegal", "more of a race car than a street car" were constantly being said. Sure, there were gripes about the gear rattle, the heavy clutch, the funny sounding V10, the notchy shifter, the sparse interior - but when it came down to it, after I read each article I was more in love with the car than I was before.
If you look back at old issues, Motor Trend was the biggest Viper-loving magazine out there - they were the only publication that always put a positive spin on the car. They looked at it like it was something special, a real driver's car, and they didn't compare it to other cars like they would, say, a Camry. Things have changed these days, and maybe it's because the whole world has changed.
The Gen V is a great car, and customers get a lot for the money. I think it's the "best" Viper to date when you look at what you get for the money (not necessarily if you add some of the luxury options...). As far as a lot of those things go, I personally got spoiled by my Gen IV ACR and that's the high-water mark that I compare everything else to. The Gen V will really come into its own when a no-frills, scary-as-hell, weapon of mass destruction ACR is released. That will be where SRT engineering and marketing have their chance to really be appreciated. The base car is great - but it's evolved so far beyond what the Viper was all about in the very beginning. What hopefully will happen is that something comes out and redefine the car and re-positions it as something in a class all its own.
Remember the big debates ages ago about whether the Viper was a supercar, a sports car, or a muscle car? People got annoyed at those debates - but it was those debates that defined the car. It wasn't any of those things, but at the same time it was all of them.
This is just my personal opinion - so take it for what it's worth (probably nothing). It was the Gen IV ACR that saved Viper from extinction. That car got so much good press, and was such a no-nonsense over-the-top piece of craziness that it put Viper back on the map. If the standard Gen IV was the only thing available before the world fell apart in '08/'09, I think we would have seen the Viper disappear quietly. The same may happen now - if the chance isn't taken to release something insane like a Gen V ACR, the world may just forget about the Viper.
On that note, when the TA came out, several friends of mine who are anti-Viper people brought me magazines and were marveling at the fact that the car performed so well and appeared to be such an ass-kicker for such a reasonable price. And that was just the TA - just wait till an ACR is in the hands of a magazine test driver. We'll see a whole new level of buzz in the marketplace.
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