Re: Scott Mead
I have said it before and I will say it again: I can't understand why any Viper owner EVER lets any comparison to the Corvette even register in their mind. Corvettes are NOT in our league...money wise, style wise, performance wise and race wise. Why do we even devote one line of space to it?
It mystifies me why sports car owners constantly feel the need to put down other cars in an attempt to justify/elevate theirs. This is particularly curious when their assertions are not supported by publicly available fact.
To suggest that a Corvette is not in the same league as a Viper financially necessarily asserts that finances are a key determinant of performance. Yet at less than 1/3rd the price the GTS Viper has proven itself readily capable of defeating the Ferrari 550 Maranello in most usable areas of performance (Motor Trend, July 1999). That simple fact puts paid (no pun intended) to the idea that sheer price makes something better than the other. Every modern Ferrari costs more than a Viper but only one, the $650K Enzo, is likely able to defeat it. Given the torque advantage and available traction of the SRT-10 I am not convinced that even the Enzo would survive a midrange run from say 100 - 180mph against an SRT-10.
Herb Helbig, then vehicle synthesis manager for the Viper, recounts that when Bob Lutz retired he pulled him aside and said, "Above all, you've got to keep the Corvette in its place by having the Viper at the top of the performance heap. If they've got 400 horsepower, you better have more than 400." For a car supposedly not in the Viper's class the architects and keepers of the flame at team Viper seem inordinately preoccupied with it. I wonder why.
Style is in the eye of the beholder and is largely subjective. I will say that the Viper's look is unquestionably more arresting than that of the current C5. However, neither car will draw the attention that the elegant 575 Maranello will. This does not make the Maranello a better car and does not make either the Vette or Viper less than. Aston Martin's Vanquish is quite stylish. The Porsche Turbo's look is that of a timeless classic. Despite this, both cars can be readily taken down by others costing a fraction of their price (my notes, Automobile magazine, March 2003).
Performance? The current Z06 Corvette has proven in publicly available head to head empirical testing that it is competitive with the world's best, including, of course, the Viper (Automobile magazine November 2002, Car and Driver September 2002). The difference in power-to-weight ratio between the two cars is only 0.2 lbs./hp in the Viper's favor.
Race performance? I am astonished that anyone would even attempt to use this to denigrate the Corvette. The Viper has been around for about 11 years and in that relatively short time has amassed a laudable number of race victories worldwide including the FIA GT2 championships in 1997 and 1998 and the reclassified FIA GT championship in 1999. It won the ALMS GTS Teams title and Driver's and Manufacturer's Championships in 1999. It won its class at Le Mans from 1998 - 2000, the 24 hours of Daytona in 2000 and it won again at Sebring. It is doubtless that the tradition will continue.
However, the Corvette has existed for 50 years. To even invite a comparison is to ignore both basic fact and simple math. Corvettes have been competing and winning in worldwide endurance racing since 1956 at Sebring. The marque would go on to win 13 more times by 2002. Under the auspices of the Briggs Cunningham team the Corvette won its class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1960 in VIN 102538, almost three decades before the Viper would be a formative gleam in the eyes of Messrs. Iacocca and Lutz.
Corvettes such as the 1968 L-88 sponsored by Owens/Corning Fiberglas and campaigned by such drivers as Tony DeLorenzo, Jerry Thompson, Jerry Hansen and other proved virtually unstoppable in FIA A-Production from 1968-1973. In 1969 and 1970 it won its class at the 24 Hours of Daytona.
In 2001 the factory Corvette team finished 1-2, 200 miles ahead of their GTS competition. In 2002 the Corvette C5-R driven by Oliver Gavin, Johnny O'Connell and Ron Fellows won nine out of 10 American Le Mans Series races earning the ALMS manufacturer, team and driver championships and finished 1-2 at Le Mans for the second consecutive year. In its last race it finished 8 laps ahead of its closest competitor. Production C5s extended this streak through the Grand Am Cup and SCCA. As the oldest continuously produced sports car in the world the Corvette has long since earned the right to respect for its racing pedigree. Unless they have a time machine, everyone else plays catch up. As then Team Viper Executive Engineer Roy Sjoberg once commented in reference to the 1966 Corvette which he races, "I can't go vintage racing in a Viper."
Herb Helbig once said, "The Corvette-Viper rivalry, we couldn't hope for a better situation. Make no mistake about it, the Corvette guys are a lot like we are. We are all gearheads. They play to a little bit different audience, but they have the same kind of guys and we all have performance in mind." It is that kind of informed respect that should permeate the relationship between the Viper and Corvette. This solidarity should extend to the upcoming Ford GT which, in its previous incarnation as the legendary GT40, so defeated Ferraris at Le Mans that they stopped racing at the legendary circuit for years. That these three legendary American nameplates will soon stand shoulder to shoulder astride worldwide motorsports in the face of often contemptuous European competition should inspire camaraderie among their owners.
The Viper is tied to the Corvette in thought, design and execution. Zora-Arkus Duntov, known as the "Father of the Corvette," influenced the Viper's development, through Roy Sjoberg's pre-Viper apprenticeship on the Corvette program. It is no surprise that Arkus-Duntov was especially invited to attend the Viper's press launch event. For his part, Sjoberg used his past connections to the Corvette team to persuade them to incorporate a key Corvette part in the Viper. In the Viper's early development neither ZF nor Getrag could design a durable and affordable transmission for the car. Finally, the Viper team settled on the Borg-Warner T-56 transmission developed for GM and the Corvette. As Sjoberg later acknowledged, GM could have vetoed any chance of Dodge sharing the transmission. As the transmission was the "biggest problem" in the business case supplier issue, this may have effectively ended the car's gestation. But, as Sjoberg noted, GM gave its blessing after deciding "they wanted the competition." And so today the Viper exists.
Would that some of its wanna-be elitist drivers would pick up a book.
